The Beautiful Ones
by Rasputin Zero
Summary: A viscious serial killer is eliminating all the social outcasts, and Dib has taken it upon himself to figure out who. Intense psychological thriller with a dash of social satire. Enjoy! Update: Fixed the names.
1. Prologue: Freak

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Prologue: Freak  
  
It was one o'clock at night. Most people should be in bed by this time, usually except insomniacs, kids braving themselves to last past bed-time, and convenience store clerks currently contemplating suicide by sinking to such depths that they have to take night-shifts. But by rights no one should actually be OUT AND ABOUT by this time. But Spoo was always one to buck the trend, and this time it was going to cost him...  
  
He ran down claustrophobic alleyways, trying to shake off his pursuer, but everytime he turned a corner he could see the figure in front of him, somehow anticipating his every move. He would let out a yelp and run in the opposite direction, but the dark, shaded figure was always only a few steps behind him.  
  
He had been lying comfortably at home, staring at the ceiling trying to will himself to go to sleep. He usually found it hard since he had to wake up at least once a night to take his medication. His skin was an unnatural shade of tourqouise and his eyes were small and mirror-like, like those of cats. All this was the result of a debilitating genetic disorder that he had to live with for every day of his life. He was allergic to animals, and in fact most plants. He had to bring a special bag full of nutrients to skool each day.  
  
Of course this didn't exactly ingratiate him with the popular crowd in skool. He had a few friends but they were always the type that banded with you because they were in the same predicament. They never actually DID anything except sit there looking miserable. Even of they had planned something, Spoo's medication meant that often he couldn't even leave the house. Today had been a particularly bad day, with the skool bullies stealing his special lunch bag with all his medication in it. He had broken out in sores and was whimpering on the ground before they decided to throw it at him. Then they laughed. Even the sympathetic ones laughed with them, becuase you don't argue with them and retain some dignity. This alienation was contributing to his lack of sleep. He was experimenting to see if "crying yourself to sleep" actually did work.  
  
Then...IT broke in. Crawling through the window and slashing the bedsheets and cutting him across the arm. He cradled the arm as he ran from the room, crying for his parents. But he received no answer. He kept hearing footsteps behind him and decided to make a run for it out of the house. His sleeve was soaked in blood by now, and every step seemed to irritate the wound somehow. He turned a corner and crawled into an open dumpster, hoping to shake the thing off. He kept as quiet as he could, his heart fueled by adrenaline and his arm stinging him. He listened to the footsteps slowly pass by the dumpster, and stop momentarily...  
  
His cat-eyes were wide in fear, and his pyjamas were soaked in sweat and other substances typically fear-induced, though the smell of the dumpster would supposedly cancel that out. There were a few, long, eternal seconds of painful silence. Then the footsteps seemed to move away, and Spoo let out a sigh of relief as quietly as he possibly could. But his face started twitching. His skin began itching all over. He was left with the irresistable urge to scratch. This only seemed to make the itching worse. He realised in horror: he'd forgotten to take his medication! As the itching reached his arm-wound he couldn't help but let out a silent whimper...  
  
The footsteps instantly stopped. Spoo froze in horror, but his skin felt like needles were poking through it from the inside. The footsteps drew nearer to the dumpster and finally stopped. Spoo lay as still as he could through the agony, hoping that the figure may just call this a false alarm. But the dumpster suddenly upended itself and Spoo was sent skidding across the dark, dank alleyway. Hands latched onto him, every touch sending slithers of pain throughout his nervous system, his skin turning red from the irritation. He looked and only saw a silver, shining object being thrown into him in a semi-circle.  
  
A sharp pain entered his neck. Blood filled the interior of his mouth as it spilled from his neck and soaked the back of his head. He tried to scream, but the air with which to do so was escaping from his neck along with his consciousness. He could feel his body turn immobile, and his brain was starting to send out confusing messages as the blood drained from it into the street. The last sensory perception he could feel before everything turned black was sent from his ears, already garbled as his body around him slowly died. It was one word, uttered by the thing above him.  
  
"Freak..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	2. All Hail The New Gods

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part One: All hail the new gods  
  
The skool bell rang, heralding yet another day of beatings, of lunch money tributes, of card-trading among social leeches, of teachers programming their students to recite meaningless facts and figures. In fact, it heralded everything except any actual learning. But that was not unusual in skool, as learning things was surprisingly enough not the main objective of the place. It's main objective was to prepare kids for the inevitable truth out in the real world: there are the rulers and the ruled.  
  
"Okay class," Ms. Bitters intoned to the array of pupils in front of her, "welcome to yet another day in your miserable and pointless lives. Though your names will soon disappear into insignificance as the modern world swallows each one of you whole and spits you out as yet another corporate drone, it is nevertheless necessary to call them out to make sure none of you are showing any signs of...'independence'. Aki." Ms. Bitters scowled from the other side of her desk, and barely paused to hear the answer of the corresponding student before moving up the alphabet to the next doomed soul.  
  
"Here, ma'am," Dib mumbled as Ms. Bitters moved onto the 'D's. He never really looked forward to any day at skool. Not only were his talents wasted on the standardised material churned out to them, but he was always struck with a constant reminder of how INCREDIBLY stupid people were. He glared across the classroom to Zim. The alien. His own personal pet project and one of his few reasons for living in this dull, depressing life he had managed to find himself in. Zim glared back across the classroom at Dib, sticking a segmented tongue at him in a childish display of contempt. He was green. He was devoid of many basic human features. His hair LOOKED like a wig. But when the rest of the class looked at him all they could perceive was another figure to lump in collectively in a great, big box labeled 'weirdos'. A box the class had thrown him into as well...  
  
"Yes, Ms. Bitters," perked Jessica, once Ms. Bitters had begun reciting 'J's. Dib seethed with contempt at the girl. She was the undisputed leader of what Dib mockingly called 'The Beautiful Ones', a collection of Beauty Queens, fashion fascists, heavy lifters and sports players with more muscle weight than IQ levels. Whatever they said, everyone HAD to agree on, for they were the new gods and to cross them was sacrilege. As a consequence, whatever SHE said was the opinion of The Beautiful Ones. If she had anything going on inside that pretty head of hers, she could've manipulated the skool to crown her dictator-for-life. Dib turned back ahead so as not to inflame himself more. Ms. Bitters had moved onto the 'S's...  
  
"Spoo," Ms. Bitters said, waiting momentarily for an answer, but she never got one, "Spoo?" Everyone turned towards the empty space where Spoo's horribly diseased face usually peered from. In the modern education system, space like that was traded round skools like currency. But Spoo had definitely skipped class. Inflamed at this show of defiance, Ms. Bitters summoned the class phone from the depths of the desk from whenst it came and dialled Spoo's number on the dialler. Murmorings began developing in the class.  
  
"He's probably taping his skin to his face or something," Zita exclaimed. The rest of the class laughed at this cruel thought. Yes, this pleased The Beautiful Ones. Dib just stared ahead, ignoring everyone. Zim didn't see the joke but joined in the giggling so as to seem supposedly 'normal'. Many of the other designated 'outcasts' of the class giggled along, so as to try to fit in. One of these gigglers was Alex. A girl who sat a few rows behind Dib and one of those poor souls who tried to gain entry to The Beautiful Ones, but were always rejected. She had almost bankrupted herself purchasing the appropriate fashion labels and scouring their conversations for whatever was 'the next cool thing'. But despite all that, she still remained the outcast...  
  
"Yeah, or maybe putting in some new eyeballs," Alex chirped in, determined to join in the converation and claim her 'cool' credentials. But all she received was silence. The Beautiful Ones were not amused. Alex wavered momentarily, her smile fading, then she finally just stared down at her desk. Ms. Bitters had finally ended her conversation over the phone and relaced the handset. The phone descended back into the desk, releasing a few damned souls along the way.  
  
"That was the police," Ms. Bitters explained, "Spoo's parents were found with their insides spread across their bedroom floor, while Spoo himself was found a few blocks away with his throat slit and his blood splattered around the alleyway he was found in. If you wish to seek counselling, I would like to inform you that you are a worthless pansey who doesn't deserve to live. I would like to take the oppurtunity to blame this horrible act on...SOCIETY!" Ms. Bitters smacked the word 'society' written in large letters on the chalkboard, but most of the students were deep in thought. Somebody murdered Spoo? They searched inwardly for their feelings and memories of him. They needed some moral guidance. The class, one by one, slowly turned towards Jessica for her opinion, as they could not reasonably proceed wothout it...  
  
"Who cares about that freak anyway?" spake Jessica. The class nodded sagely. The wise one had spoken, and they must lead. Spoo was a worthless freak who was better off dead. This produced some moral dilemmas in some of the students, but Jessica's intonement reassured them. Dib could only look around in complete and utter disgust. In his fury he kicked the desk in front of him away and stormed out of the classroom, amazed at the sheer lack of empathy in his class...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	3. The Throne Room

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Two: The throne room  
  
C, the Vampire Piggy Hunter, slid through another closing hallway to appear in the chamber of the great Count Pigulon. Pigulon was a massive, bulbous Vampire Piggy that filled up the entire room with his blood-fueled pork. He released a barrage of Vampire Piggies at C, but he scythed through them with ease. C quickly realised that the only way to stop Pigulon was to strike directly at his head, but that required a perfectly-timed jump onto the overhead platform. C waited patiently for the right moment, and ran...  
  
"I'm telling you Gaz, Zim has GOT to be behind this one!"  
  
...and missed the opening, plunging him to his horrible death as giant letters spelling 'GAME OVER' levitated above him. Gaz gritted her teeth, it was the second time this had happened to her in the space of ten minutes, and both times for precisely the same reason. Gaz turned to her brother beside him, the source of her annoyance, and imagined many horrible and painful things happening to him, some involving chainsaws. Gaz slammed her GS2 on the cafeteria table in front of her in frustration.  
  
"DIB!? Can't you go FIVE MINUTES without annoying me?" Gaz accused. Dib had been going on about this all day. He had just come out of detention for storming out of the classroom earlier, and had spent that time thinking of how Zim was responsible for Spoo's death, despite the many gaping holes in this theory.  
  
"But Gaz! It's obvious," ranted Dib, "Zim was probably trying to take advantage of Spoo's skin condition as a plot to take over the world somehow..." Gaz momentarily gave up on her game in a final effort to shut him up...  
  
"Dib, Zim may be trying to take over the earth but he's NOT the serial killer type," reasoned Gaz, "he's too dumb. And since when did space aliens use knives? Face it, Dib, not everything wrong in this world can be put down to some supernatural...thing. Believe it or not, some problems are just because of people being people. NOW SHUT UP IF YOU DON'T WANT MY FIST DOWN YOUR THROAT!!" Dib recoiled at the sound of her voice, and looked down at the table in defeat. Hoping that managed to shut him up, Gaz returned to her game...  
  
"Oh, look, it's Mulder and Scully," tittered Jessica as she passed by. Dib groaned inwardly at the sound of her voice. Gaz groaned outwardly and resisted the urge to strangle the life out of her. Jessica could never pass up the oppurtunity to make fun of the 'lesser mortals' that congregated in the cafeteria. That one room could probably be called Jessica's throne room. A table was laid out for her, where all her courtiers crowded round listening to her pass judgement on her subjects and commended her words of wisdom. She looked at the two of them with a smug smile on her face, certain in her perceived superiority over the two of them. She was richer, more popular, and more 'normal' than these two losers could ever be.  
  
"That didn't even make sense," Gaz informed Jessica, "Scully's a scientist, I'm a psychopath. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT YOU MORON!" Jessica's smiled disappeared, furious at this blatant act of disobediance.  
  
"Losers..." she muttered before carrying onto her high table. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be rid of that air-headed imbecile. Gaz loaded up her last savepoint and began once again to tap repeatedly at the buttons, engrossed in this fictional world full of pain and malice and zombie hogs. But that concentration would yet be interupted.  
  
"That's what Zim wants us to think!" Dib yelled in Gaz's ear, apparently skipping the minute between the two ends of the conversation, "he used a knife to TRICK us into thinking it was a human who did it!" Gaz gritted her teeth again and her eye began twitching spasmically. She was beginning to lose her cool.  
  
"WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT ZIM!!" Gaz shrieked in Dib's ear, "every time I come here it's 'Zim did this', 'Zim did that', 'Zim took it up the ass from Mongo Slunchy', HE COULDN'T TAKE OVER THE EARTH IF HE WANTED TO!! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HIM, SO WHY DO YOU KEEP TELLING ME!!?" Gaz heaved and gasped. If that didn't do it, she would have to resort to physical violence, or preferably some accident with a trash compactor.  
  
"Don't you even CARE that he's trying to destroy mankind?" Dib asked. Gaz paused, looking at the scene around her. Jocks and gossipy shitheads paying tribute to their goddess on one table, outcasts looking down at their tables in misery on another, Zim sitting on his own poking his way around his food tray, the lunch lady contemplating suicide, and other kids eating their meals in blissful ignorance of the lives around them.  
  
"I'd care," concluded Gaz philosophically, "I just wouldn't mind..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	4. Life in Exile

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Three: Life in exile  
  
Zim, the Irken at the forefront of his race's latest effort to conquer the universe and one of the most skillful and brilliant tacticians the galaxy has ever seen, or so he would like you to believe, was poking at his cafeteria tray with a mixture of revulsion and determination. He had to convince anyone who might be watching him that he WAS in fact eating the mound of filth in front of him. If he had realised that everyone else was actually doing the same thing, he needn't have bothered.  
  
Paying little attention to Dib, he scooped up another spoonful of the processed muck in front of him and placed it in a compartment of his pak to be dumped later on. He had analyzed the food early on in his mission and found it laced with conditioning drugs and growth hormones. The growth hormones perhaps explained why he overheard so many people complaining about the 'hi-skool mentality' while still in elementary, the early appearance of the jock/nerd paradigm while still in their early stages of development. He found it rather intrigueing, the best way to restrict people's hopes is to limit the most hope-filled part of a human's development. A rather primitive and clumsy tool of control, but still fairly advanced at this point of a planet's development.  
  
Zim continued to poke around the food as he looked around the cafeteria. He briefly glimpsed the table where The Beautiful Ones sat, where their vassals paid tribute by japestering and lunch money. Ah yes, a primitive human feudal system, Zim chuckled to himself. How much more effective would human society be if status was just determined by height. He wore a brief smile on his face as he surveyed the room, stopping as he peered into the face of Gretchen, who had sat next to him. Zim recoiled in shock.  
  
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, HUMAN STINKCHILD!?" Zim shrieked at the braced apparation in front of him. He glimpsed to his side and saw that everyone was staring at him. He gritted his teeth, had he blown his cover? Slowly he settled back down, keeping a close eye on everyone's movements. They seemed to lose interest and most of them turned back to eating or socialising. Zim breathed a sigh of relief, and decided to brave the face of the horrible creature in front of him...  
  
"I thought I could hang here and...y'know...talk to someone?" Gretchen informed Zim, who was using all his willpower not to vomit in her face, "I get real lonely and I was waiting all this time to have enough courage to actually come over here and...uhhh...talk?" Zim sat cross-armed. He had no room for human companionship of any kind, let alone hers.  
  
"I do not require the company of an inferior human wormbaby," Zim replied, "BEGONE WITH YOUUU!" Zim pointed away from the table for effect. Gretchen developed a sad expression and left Zim's table. It was hard to have many expressions when half your head was made out of teeth-correcting metal, but she managed to look disappointed. She walked back towards her table as Jessica decided that yet another one of her announcements was in order.  
  
"Rejected by a reject," decreed Jessica, "you're such a loser, Gretchen." Everyone burst out in laughter at the sad sight of a rejected Gretchen. Under normal circumstances some of the students would be inclined to feel sorry for her, but as Peg had declared that her pain was to be laughed at, everyone did. Zim just looked back to his food. The affairs of the humans were of little interest to him. He would have done the same thing to anyone else who asked for his companionship, there was just none to give.  
  
But as Gretchen was being teased with magnets The Beautiful Ones had somehow managed to acquire, a plan came to Zim's mind. The food in front of him was lined with conditioning drugs. If he could somehow fine-tune those drugs, then the next lunchtime they had would see these inferior ones bowing down to him! Yes, that might just work! Zim chomped on a spoonful of mush in anticipation of his oncoming victory, and promptly spent the next half a minute spasming violently on the table.  
  
As he came to his senses, his mind raced with possible excuses for this blatantly inhuman action. But as he sat up, he realised that everyone was actually paying attention to Gretchen. She had become bruised and many of her pimples had inadvertantly burst as The Beautiful Ones took it in turns to attract Gretchen's braces between two tables. Everyone was laughing cruelly at her, as she was an object of The Beautiful One's amusement and so had to be laughed at. Gretchen burst into tears and ran out of the cafeteria. Humans, thought Zim, the universe would be better off without them...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	5. Developing Patterns

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Four: Developing patterns  
  
Gretchen stared at herself in the mirror. She had to in order to nurse the bruises inflicted on her in the cafeteria today, but she wished she didn't, as in the course of this she looked upon her own hideous visage. It wasn't her fault that she was like this, a face full of spots and a mouth full of steel, a grotesquely misshapen head that seemed to transform her into a monster. We're constantly reminded in so many crappy kid's TV shows that it's important to look past the surface, but that ignores the basic fact that to a kid, the surface was all there was.  
  
When she looked into the mirror, she didn't see an intelligent, compassionate soul looking back. She saw the quintessential bookworm, a girl with more interest in locking herself in the library and surrounding herself in complex mathematical equations. Shit, she didn't even DO math! She watched mind-rotting TV and listened to pop like the rest of the kids (well, there's no accounting for taste). She hadn't so much as stepped into the library except for skool neccesities. But what does that matter to a prematurely pubescent 10-year-old? If you looked like a nerd, you were a nerd.  
  
Gretchen shoved a cupful of water in her face from the sink in front of the mirror, partially to wash it but mostly to soak up the tears. She left the bathroom and made her way to her bedroom. It wasn't very late in the evening, but she preferred to get this horrid day over and done with. She decided to check in with her parents first before going to bed. It was only polite, and she needed some parental reassurance to keep her from slitting her wrists.  
  
She opened the door to the living room that they usually vegetated in. As she entered she noticed the open window, which was odd as her parents had this intense dislike of drafts. Peering round the corner, she noticed that her parents weren't there. Instead what she saw made her blood run cold. There were red stains across the sofa, merging into one long stain that weaved towards the spot she was standing on. Looking behind her, she saw that the stain led towards her parent's bedroom.  
  
Following the stain with a sinking feeling developing inside her, she slowly opened the darkened bedroom door to see her parents lying on the bed under the sheets. She crept slowly towards the bed and tried to shake them awake, but received no response. She nervously tugged at the sheets until she felt her feet squelch in something. Looking down, she saw that the carpet directly underneath the carpet was drenched in a copper-scented substance. Panicking, she pulled her mother's face towards her, only to see two lifeless eyes staring at her.  
  
Letting out a short scream, she stumbled toward the light switch to illuminate the situation, but only witnessed all the other lights in the house switching off. Keeping still, shaking in fright in the middle of her former parent's bedroom, she started hearing footsteps coming from outside the door. She wanted desperately to get away, but her terror conspired to keep her rooted to the spot. Staring at the door in expectation as the footsteps drew nearer, she breathed heavily as adrenaline began to pump through her veins.  
  
But the footsteps stopped abruptly in front of the door, and seemed to move away. Gretchen could barely breathe a sigh of relief through all the terror. She waited for at least a minute before making plans to get away, and began making tentative steps towards the door. But she was only just reaching for the doorknob when she felt a gloved hand jerk her head back covering her mouth and an arm surround her waist.  
  
Desperately twisting her head around, she could only see the open window behind her. The figure must have snuck outside and flanked her. She squirmed in her attacker's grasp, but to no avail. The thing seemed to reach into her mouth and grapped onto her braces. She winced in pain as the metal apparation was ripped from her mouth, taking several teeth and some chunks of her gums with it. She was thrown away from the figure towards the door, which Gretchen immediately opened without thinking.  
  
Her mouth was drooling blood, as pieces of her braces remained to lacerate the inside of her mouth. The blood escaped and flowed down the front of her dress, dripping down to the floor to give a helpful hint to the killer behind her. She ran towards the front door, finding it jammed shut. She banged on the door desperately as she whimpered from the unbearable pain in her mouth, which the whimpering only made worse. She began crying, falling to the floor in front of the door in abject desperation.  
  
She saw a shadow appear above her, but she had no energy to run. She wanted her life over with. Away from the beatings and the mockery, and away from the sharp pains in her mouth. She welcomed the cold knife sliding across her neck, releasing the life out of her in one long flood. Darkness overwhelmed her, and she didn't even hear the comment made by the apparation behind her.  
  
"Loser..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	6. Recon

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Five: Recon  
  
Zim crouched in the corner of a deserted alleyway, checked if the cost was clear, then jumped into the shadows on the other side of the alleyway and clinged to the building as he slid round the corner, carefully avoiding being spotted. Zim crouched behind a trashcan, whipped out his corner-scanning binoculars, and saw no one in his proximity. But, not taking any chances, he dropped to the floor and crawled silently towards the back of a stairway. He paused to check on Gir, but when he looked around he saw he wasn't there. Activating the comms, he whispered for Gir to come to him. A few seconds later he saw Gir, squeeking in his dog costume in full view of everyone, loudly slurping an ice sucky. He saw Zim grating his teeth in the corner and waved.  
  
"Hi!" Gir yelled, completely oblivious to the point of all these precautions. Zim had carefully tracked down the source of the cafeteria food and had already prepared a special Irken-loving conditioning drug that allowed him to order whoever took even a small dosage of it to kill themselves on demand, or have a terminal case of indigestion, but either circumstance would still benefit his mission. Now, if that stupid robot could just keep quiet for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES...  
  
"Gir!" Zim indicated as quietly as he could, "we are trying to infiltrate an enemy stronghold. That means less suck, more crawl. Got it?" Gir paused slurping and entered into deep thought, ignoring the dark figure that had appeared at the end of the alleyway.  
  
"Mmmmmmm....NOPE!" Gir yelled annoyingly loudly, "I wanna see the candy-dispenser!" Gir clapped in anticipation of a sugar rush as Zim shook his head. The figure had drawn nearer the two of them but Gir was too wrapped up in his own little dream world to notice it.  
  
"Gir, if the skool ever let human dirt-children have sweets," Zim theorised, "the entire system could abruptly collapse in on its-AGH! WHAT ARE YOU!? GET AWAY!!" Zim yelped this he noticed the shadowy figure tower above him, full of malice and foreboding. The thing stepped back into the light, and Zim finally realised WHY the figure was full of malice and foreboding. "Gaz? The Dib-human-sibling-thing? What are you doing here?" Gaz winced at this description of her, but indicated resignedly towards another figure approaching...  
  
"GAZ! You found Zim! Good work!" Dib lavished on her sister, but Gaz just waved him away with a look of disinterest and began to walk off, "so, Zim. Planning another little murder to rid yourself of your enemies?" Zim drew himself up to his full height (which wasn't very tall) and launched into full gloating mode.  
  
"MWAAAHAHAHAA...eh, what? NO!" Zim's gloating mode came to an abrupt end as he realised what Dib was saying. It was just like Dib to blame him for every problem in the world, but while he appreciated the attention, he could never bring himself to simply MURDER someone, that was just...COWARDLY. Dib picked up on Zim's annoyance when linked to Spoo's murder. Usually Zim tried to divert criticism or accuse him of lies, but never just a straight out NO.  
  
"Well, what are you doing then?" asked Dib. He had practically ignored Gaz, who was walking away from the two rivals along the other end of the alleyway. He had dragged Gaz along with the promise of leaving her alone for the next week. She herself was surprised she bought it, but she really needed time to herself, as it was becoming harder to get recently. Peg's taunts have started to penetrate her own personal space, as they have learnt ignore her acts of intimidation and head straight for the jugular. She paused as she passed the trashcans, noticing something interesting.  
  
"I'm not telling you, inferior human pest!" Zim answered to Dib's admittedly rather naive question, "now begone with you. As much as I would enjoy seeing you suffer in horrible gruesome pain right now, I have things to-"  
  
"HEY!" Gaz called from the other end of the alleyway, "there's something here you'd better take a look at!" Dib glanced from Zim to Gaz, and Zim followed his gaze. They both ran towards the trashcan opened by Gaz and looked in. Inside was the lifeless corpse of Gretchen. Dib felt like he was about to puke, as did Zim but only because of the smell. Gaz, as always, kept her cool.  
  
"Holy...the killer must have been planning to dump her in the food processor, but Zim must have changed her plans," Dib theorised, trying not to gag, noticing the slivers of metal jutting out from her cheek, "jeezus...who could do this? Who would go to this trouble for one kid? And pay so much attention to her braces? First Spoo, then..." Dib paused, piecing together the clues in his head. There was only one possible conclusion.  
  
"It must be one of the students..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	7. In Our Midst...

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Six: In our midst  
  
Dib studied every student that passed his way. He was in the skool corridor on the morning following the discovery of Gretchen's body. The police had been around to investigate the murder, but they simply put it down to another child abuser. They hadn't even been around to the skool, though some people had managed to pick up the basic gist of the killings, since the press had dubbed the killer 'the geek exterminator', sucessfully making the crime less sinister than it really needed.  
  
He stared at every child, compiling his own personal list of subjects. Mary skipped round the corner. Maybe the pressure of having different parents every week had finally got to her, thought Dib. Torque lifted a couple of weights as he passed him by. Perhaps he fancied testing his athletic skills on targeting actual people. A cold shiver ran down Dib's spine as he caught sight of Morla. He might be sacrificing people for arcane rituals. He was concentrating on Brian as he ran into Gaz, letting out an involuntary scream. Gaz could only look perplexed.  
  
"...what?" asked Gaz, infuriated that her brother wasn't keeping to his promise to leave her alone. Dib picked himself up, but seemed reluctant to talk to his incredibly scary sister, resorting to sweaty glances and an overriding fear that she may abruptly produce a knife.  
  
"G...Gaz," Dib stuttered, "y...y'know you do have s...something of a re...reputation..."  
  
"You were with me the entire night," informed Gaz, "I should know, you nearly threw up all over me. You promise to leave me alone, then you start accusing me of killing people? You should know I'll have to destroy you now." Gaz threw Dib out of her way and stomped down the corridor in the opposite direction, deep in her plans of horrible screaming malice. Dib looked back with a funny look on his face, then continued on.  
  
Every little sound in the corridor seemed to grate against Dib's senses. It was one thing to compete against an evil creature from outer space, and completely another to never know WHO may be considering ripping your lungs out. His severe nervousness made people look at him with bemused glances, which only deepened his nervousness as a bemused expression was only a short step away from an 'I'm planning to do horrible things to your spleen' expression. His paranoia subsided as he began hearing the sound of gossip and platform shoes in the distance. The Beautiful Ones were approaching...  
  
"So Tae said 'yeah', and I said 'yeah', and he was soo 'yeah', so I y'know talked to Poonchy and he was like 'yeah', so I said 'yeah' and he said 'yeah' and Torque was REALLY, like, y'know, 'yeah'," Jessica wittered, dazzling her subjects with tales of romance and intrigue. If only serial killers can be let loose on people, Dib thought cruelly. He turned to leave the other way, as so much as seeing them in his presence was enough to make him throw up, but the following events took his interest.  
  
Melvin entered the scene from the toilet in the side of the corridor and walked towards the cafeteria on the other side, across the path of The Beautiful Ones. Sarah couldn't resist sticking her foot out and letting his face impact on the floor in front of Jessica. Melvin whimpered as he got up from the floor, about to face the wrath of the skool's high court. Dib really pitied him.  
  
"Well look, it's the nerd," declared Jessica at the frightened little child in front of her, "I guess you're off to masturbate over comics or something." The rest of The Beautiful Ones burst out laughing at this incredibly lame joke.  
  
"Or play Dungeons & Dragons with your loser friends," chirped in Alex, who had somehow managed to sneak into the group, but all she met was silent incomprehension.  
  
"What's that?" asked Zita, angered that this interloper dared enter Jessica's presence.  
  
"It's a game that...losers...play..." Alex stammered, losing confidence fast. Jessica looked upon this pretender in disgust.  
  
"So how do YOU know about it then? Go away you loser," Jessica intoned, crushing Alex's hopes for the umpteenth time, "and as for you..." Jessica turned her attention back to Melvin as Alex slunk away, and indicated to Chunk, her voluntary lackey, to approach him. Dib winced as Chunk's fist buried itself in Melvin's stomach while the rest of The Beautiful Ones laughed at his pain. It was only then that the significance of this hit Dib. The same thing happened to Gretchen and Spoo. This could only mean one thing.  
  
Unless he did something, Melvin was going to die...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	8. Guardian

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Seven: Guardian  
  
Melvin was getting increasingly irritated by the babbling idiot beside him. He was walking home after an evening watching Star Trek: Voyager over at a Keef's house which Dib had decided to gatecrash, during which time he was constantly commenting on glaring inaccuracies about all the aliens on the show, as well as the unlikeliness of humans specifically developing a perfect utopian society. While he was likely to agree with this, nursing a bruised arm and wincing every second step, it did make the whole process less than enjoyable.  
  
"Look, I appreciate the whole 'protecting me' thing 'n all," Melvin attempted to reason, "but couldn't you from, y'know, a distance? You're starting to bug me..." This was true, as during the entire evening Melvin hadn't witnessed ANYTHING resembling some sadistic serial killer out to get him. And having Dib as his only line of defence didn't exactly inspire him with confidence.  
  
"You'll be thanking me soon enough, MELVIN!" Dib yelled, "your life is in grave danger! The killer is probably around here right now, just WAITING for us to drop our guard! But we're not gonna drop it! YOU HEAR ME!? WE'RE NOT GOING TO DROP IT!!" Melvin covered his ear at this abrupt outburst. He kept doing this every so often, just talking to no one in particular and shouting loudly at space as if he was addressing the universe. He turned his attention back towards the road ahead he noticed something flashing in the distance.  
  
"Hey, what's that?" Melvin queried, attracting Dib's attention towards the object. It was floating above the nearby power station. Dib drew the only conclusion he could.  
  
"Zim," said Dib, absolute in his certainty, "he must be trying to blow up the power plant or something. Of all the fucking nights...get inside your house! I'll deal with this!" Dib ran towards the power plant and Melvin turned into his driveway without a second thought, glad to be rid of the creep. Melvin opened the front door to be confronted with darkness.  
  
"Mom? I'm home!" cried Melvin, developing a sinking feeling at the darkened surroundings. In the corner of his vision however he could see a flickering light. It was coming from the bathroom. "Mom? Sally?" Melvin called again, addressing everyone in the house this time. He peered at the floor in front of the ajar door. There was a large red stain that seemed to continue towards the bath. Melvin retreated, he had heard the stories. The killer went after their families as well.  
  
"Mom?" Melvin whimpered pathetically, tripping over something on the ground. He sat up to see his little sister's eyes staring at him. She had her organs strung put onto the floor and a flow of blood was developing constantly from her mouth. She was only seven. Melvin freaked, and ran straight out of the door with his clothes still soaked in her sister's blood. He looked around in a craze, shrieking intermittedly as the shock worked it's way out of his system. He couldn't think straight, his thoughts permanently stuck at the horrfying sight of his sister's cold, lifeless eyes.  
  
Keef. He would go to Keef's house. That was the best his frenzied brain could come up with. He ran back up the street looking around at the surroundings for any shadowy figures that might be following him. He couldn't see any. On the other hand he could see them everywhere, slashing at his sister's body and laughing as it saw her scream. He reached Keef's house and jammed repeatedly at the doorbell, still hyperventilating. He looked around, certain there was someone following him, and clawed at the door to open up. He banged it, and yelled at the occupants, desperate to have something between him and the thing.  
  
The door opened, and he ran inside as fast as he could. But he was grabbed from behind by a gloved hand. He looked down and saw Keef face down in a pool of his own blood, jutting out from the living room door. He tried to scream but the gloved hand kept him silent, and remained hysterical as the feel of cold sharp steel slid across his neck. He felt the blood gush out of him, and could only gurgle incomprensibly as he slumped to the floor, only hearing the killer's next comment echo around his head as he lost consciousness.  
  
"Nerd..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	9. Unlikely Allies

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Eight: Unlikely allies  
  
Gaz walked home along the deserted street. She had just returned from painstakingly setting up a light display using the floating torches her dad had invented during a particularly depressed phase. Soon, Dib would be found breaking into a nuclear installation and shot, or so Gaz hoped. She didn't wish Dib dead, singed in the arm would do for her. Then her revenge would be complete.  
  
She walked with a grin on her face, which was unusual enough, but then she started sensing a presence following her. She quickly turned around to find nothing actually there. She was absolutely certain someone was there, and decided to walk further along in order to draw her pursuer in. She had years of experience doing this to other people, so she knew what worked and what didn't. She continued walking until she sensed that her pursuer had drawn to within hitting distance. She waited a few seconds, then sent her foot out towards where she perceived her stalker to be.  
  
She hit nothing but air. Looking around she saw no one in her proximity. Her senses were never wrong, as she had toned them to perfection, so she immediately perceived that this was no amateur. She began walking back towards her house, quickening her pace this time. She felt her stalker pursuing her again, and realised that she would never get to her house in time. She looked to her side, and saw Zim's house handily within running distance. She braced herself. It was the only way.  
  
Gaz jump-started towards Zim's house, sprinting past the lawn gnomes and jumping straight through the window. As the window was technically made out of nothing but holographic ions, it seemed to bend and twist in space until Gaz tore through it and into the fake house's interior. Retreating back to the wall and breathing heavily, her stalker-sensitive senses were still very much active. Zim was not in evidence, but Gir, out of costume, was busy chomping down a pizza on the couch watching the Scary Monkey Show. He seemed pleased to see her, but he was pleased to see mutant cockroaches so that accounted for very little.  
  
"Helloooooo...you came to visit!" Gir yelped at Gaz, "did you bring a present? I hope you did. I need presents. I NEED THEM SO BAD!! I'll get brownies!" Gir jumped off the couch and ran to the kitchen. The sound of cupboards opening and closing at ADD-level velocities could be heard. Gaz groaned at the metal monstrosity and stared outside. A jingoistic yell drew her attention.  
  
"This is the second time, Gaz. STOP SURPRISING ME!" Zim had appeared from the wall behind her and had launched into his own tirade, "so unless you're here to surrender yourself as my future slave, I'll be forced to extract your organs..." Gaz thought reflectively, change those words just the tiniest bit and it would've sounded like something she said. She forced the thought out of her mind, there were more important things at stake.  
  
"Zim, there's a psycho out there who's even better at this thing than I am," Gaz explained, "I need something to get to my house quickly, and if you refuse to help me I'll have to rip out your ribcage and wear it as a hat." The last phrase managed to effectively cover up the fact that she was asking for help, but it still didn't seem to concern Zim very much.  
  
"Uh huh. Seems reasonable enough to me," Zim conceded, "computer! ACTIVATE YOUR DEFENCE SYS-mmphmph..." Zim was abruptly cut off as Gaz had very quickly swung past him and was clamping his mouth shut. He watched in trepidation as she pressed the pak's off-switch. Why did his pak have an off-switch? Even he was stumped by this question, it was just one of those annoying twists of fate that make situations such as this very irritating.  
  
"We're going outside now," Gaz whispered threateningly into Zim's ear, "try anything screwy and you're on a one-way express ticket to a world of pain. Got it?" Zim nodded in the affirmative. Gaz dragged Zim outside and, carefully positioning herself on his back, activated his pak. Zim activated his spider legs and began crawling quickly away from his house, a threatening Gaz clamped around his neck...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	10. Pressures

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Nine: Pressures  
  
Gaz was holding Zim hostage. She was clinging onto his back as his pak's spider legs got her home at a decent speed along the deserted streets of the city at evening. Her arm was wrapped around his neck and a hand was clamped on his mouth. All in the name of safety. Zim wasn't particularly happy with this circumstance.  
  
"mym wmn gmm mnwmn mhm mwh!" Zim mumbled under Gaz's hand. His back was starting to ache.  
  
"Oh dear, looks like the space alien wants to say something..." Gaz commented, taking her hand off his mouth. She was actually finding this rather fun.  
  
"You won't get away with this!" Zim threatened. It was a pretty weak threat mind, as one twist from Gaz's arm would've sent him crashing to earth with a short trip to the autopsy table to come.  
  
"Get away with what?" Gaz asked, "all I want to do is get home. Do that and you can go back and do whatever the hell it is you do. So long as it doesn't involve me..." This seemed reasonable, but Zim always made a point NEVER to give in to demands. He was the superior species and he wasn't going to be undone by some puny little human psychopath. But when she holds your life in the bend of her arm then you don't really have much choice in the matter. It was on that thought that Zim stopped suddenly.  
  
"What was that?" Zim said out loud, giving a reason to Gaz for his sudden cessation of movement. Something seemed to be approaching, but neither of them could see from where. Gaz started to get worried. She never got worried, so being worried meant that something was SERIOUSLY wrong.  
  
"Zim...we have to get moving. Right no-" Gaz was cut off as Zim's spider legs disappeared from below him. Landing flat on her back she only had a split second to avoid a knife coming in a wide stabbing motion towards her head. She jumped up to face her attacker, but it had already disappeared. Not willing to tempt fate, she ran as fast as she could towards her house, Zim in tow. They managed to reach the front door and Zim slammed it behind them. They were both hyperventilating from the sprint.  
  
"That...was something...I'd rather not...go through again..." Zim wheezed. Gaz looked at him with a look of annoyance.  
  
"If you hadn't paused just then, we wouldn't have had to run for our lives at all!" Gaz yelled at Zim, completely flustered. Zim drew himself up to her to respond.  
  
"If you hadn't dragged me out of my own base and held me hostage," Zim accused, "I wouldn't be running for my life in the first place!" Gaz drew herself up to Zim's face to give her response, anger temperature rapidly rising.  
  
"I was just trying to save my life," Gaz shouted, "what you do with yours is no concern to me!" Zim closed into Gaz's face to give his retort some weight.  
  
"Stupid self-centred human!" Zim cried, "You should die just like the rest of them!" Gaz closed into Zim's face so that their hate-filled eyes were mere inches apart.  
  
"I HATE YOU!" Gaz shrieked.  
  
"I HATE YOU!" Zim shrieked back.  
  
Passions ran high and lingered for a few moments when they both simultaneously developed the urge to kiss each other. Now this wasn't the kind of polite peck-on-the-cheek that 10-year olds would typically muster, this was a full-on passionate effort that you usually only see in French art-house flicks. Their eyes were closed as they let their tongues do their own little dance with each other. They then pulled away from each other in a state of shock.  
  
"What was that for, you pervert!?" Gaz yelled at Zim.  
  
"You tell me, you stinking human!" Zim shouted back.  
  
The anger-filled atmosphere pervaded for a few moments until they felt their lips lock together on their own accord. They gripped and caressed each other, giving every ounce of their being into one another. Then once again they pulled back from each other.  
  
"What are you doing!? Get out of my house!" Zim screamed at Gaz.  
  
"YOU'RE in MY house, you moron!" Gaz cried back.  
  
They stared at each other in hatred for a few more moments then once again surrendered to their passions. Their hands flowed all over each other's bodies, somehow wishing that they could merge as one. But their mutual disgust once again got the better of them.  
  
"STOP THAT!!"  
  
"YOU STOP THAT!!  
  
They stared at each other with looks of malice then once again took the plunge into each other, and this time it stayed. A shadow at the window had witnessed the whole exchange. It remained staring at the couple, noting, observing, plotting...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	11. I Was Incredible Fully Clothed?

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Ten: I was incredible fully clothed?  
  
Dib entered his house completely exhausted. He had been to the power plant to foil Zim's plan only to find his arm singed by a bullet fired from security. He spent the rest of the night locked in the office, trying to explain to them that he was honestly trying to prevent an alien invasion plan. They eventually released him on the grounds that he was a loon. He found out that there had been a sextuple homicide in his absence, and when he checked up on Zim's house all he found was Gir eating brownies and wondering where everyone was.  
  
He clawed his way up the stairs. He needed a bit of shut-eye before skool that morning. He considered taking the day off, but that would only give the killer some reprieve, and he had already collected his own personal list of suspects. He was panting as he entered his own room, but his heart seemed to miss a beat as he saw Zim and Gaz in his bed together.  
  
"WHAT...THE...FUCK!!?" shrieked Dib, shaking the two of them from their slumber. Zim looked around and blinked, still in something of a haze. He glanced to the half-naked Gaz to his side, looked down at his own predicament, and gave out a brief scream. Gaz had much the same reaction as she woke up.  
  
"Dib! I can explain..." Zim cut in desperately. He felt disgusted with himself for having relations with inferior human scum, and wanted more than anything else to just not be there.  
  
"...ugh...er...egh...you...him...bed...gergh...errr..." Dib mumbled, struck with an incapability to form coherent sentences.  
  
"Two words Dib: Danger. Proximity," Gaz gave as an excuse. She was disgusted with herself for having relations at all.  
  
"But...you and...him and...the bed and..." Dib began, "Gaz. For the sake of all mankind, tell me that NOTHING HAPPENED!" Gaz drew herself up and stared Dib in the eye, giving her answer in carefully structured prose:  
  
"Nothing. Happened. Christ Dib, are you really that perverted? I'm just a kid! All we did was share a bed. It was that or let him sleep on the floor. Besides..." Gaz looked at Zim thoughtfully, who was hurriedly clambering into his boots, "I'm not even sure he has all the relevant parts." Dib shook his head in disbelief.  
  
"Gaz! You cannot be in love with someone who's trying to exterminate humankind!" Dib reasoned, "for all I know, he's probably just using you for another one of his evil little schemes. He doesn't love you!" Zim seemed to take offense.  
  
"No I...uhh...yes! That's it! Just one of my evil schemes!" Zim tried to use as an excuse, "oh dear. It looks like you saw right through it. Well then I'll guess I'll just be going off now to concoct some other one..." Zim tried to leave quietly, but Dib blocked him. He wanted reasons, and that was just not good enough.  
  
"Gaz! You...you CAN'T LOVE PEOPLE! It's not in your nature!" Dib pleaded, "You are the antithesis of anything mushy! You laugh at other people's attempts at romance! You even put it on your top ten list of things never to do! RIGHT THERE! NUMBER ONE! 'NEVER. FALL. IN. LOVE'! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?" Gaz clambered out of bed, still wearing her clothes from last night, minus shirt and stockings.  
  
"I took Zim hostage to get myself home safe," Gaz explained, "we were attacked, we ran to the house, and things just sorta...happened from there. It was a fluke! Now how about we..." Dib was verging on nervous laughter here.  
  
"Hehehe...just a fluke...WHAT DO YOU MEAN JUST A FLUKE!?" Dib shrieked, completely in disbelief, "Things like this don't just HAPPEN Gaz. Zim, you can go off and plot your little plans for world domination, but you have crossed the line! And if you EVER come near me or my family again, then next time will no longer be a case of capturing or foiling. Next time, I will KILL you, understand?"  
  
Dib glared at the both of them as he retreated back from the room, and they could only stare at each other in disbelief...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	12. Trapped

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Eleven: Trapped  
  
Gaz entered the cafeteria with a worried look on her face. She never looked worried. She and everyone else thought that she was physically incapable of it. She glanced nervously towards Dib's usual table. Dib was already there, but strangely enough not staring obsessively looking at Zim like he usually did. In fact, he hadn't so much as recognized his existence for the entire day. He just stared into empty space with a permanent grimace on his face. She looked over at Zim, who was staring down at the food in front of him on the table, intermittedly looking up at Dib to see if he was so much as interested in him. She briefly considered sitting with him, but quickly forced the thought out of her mind. It was a fluke. The pressure of being chased by an evil psycho-killer had heightened passions or...something. But needless to say it ended now.  
  
Gaz moved over to Dib's table and sat down. He didn't so much as turn his head towards her, which she found strangely distressing. She had always wanted Dib to stop bugging her, and now he had done so, for all the wrong reasons, she couldn't help feeling disturbed. She whipped out her GS2 to distract her own attention, but her heart wasn't in it, as Vampire Piggy Hunter C fell to his doom at the first platform. She slowly put down the GS2, gave a drawn out sigh, and decided to try her best...  
  
"Dib, I..." Gaz began.  
  
"Why aren't you with your 'boyfriend' over there?" Dib interrupted, clearly not in the mood for some kind of reconciliation. This seemed to depress Gaz even more. But then she thought, what was she doing? She was GAZ! The scourge of fourth grade! The one that had her name whispered in frightened tones in every corner of the skool! She wasn't going to be drawn down by this shit...  
  
"It was an accident! I don't love Zim! He's a loon!" Gaz indicated urgently to Dib, "now are you going to drop the subject or am I going to have to arrange for you to be bound and gagged in front of an oncoming vehicle?" Threatening and cajoling, that was more like her. But Dib remained emotionless, seemingly ignoring her threats. This seemed to irritate Gaz even more, but at least he wasn't telling anyone, which she should be thankful for-  
  
"I hear you've been doing the yucky with the green-skinned freak over there, Gaz!" Jessica had come up to the table specifically to part with that little piece of alienating info. The Beautiful Ones tittered spasmodically behind her, they didn't want to miss a moment of this. Gaz's little internal alarm was whizzing out of control.  
  
"And where did you hear that?" Gaz asked, hoping to put as little emotion in her voice as possible. She really wanted to know, since no one else could have POSSIBLY known that. Zim's interest seemed to perk up. He didn't want it to perk up, but it did so involuntarily.  
  
"Nowhere in particular," informed Jessica annoyingly, "but the weirdo and the psycho, it seems such a perfect match when you think about it." Gaz's temperature began to rise. Any other day and they would be backing down by now, but love had this annoying habit of breaking down protective barriers.  
  
"Shut up," Gaz requested, gritting her teeth and clenching her fists harshly. Zim was starting to get worried. He turned back to his food, determined to ignore these human developments.  
  
"All those evenings spent holding hands in the evening," Jessica teased, "gazing into each other's eyes, whispering dirty little things into each other's ears, smooching every so often. But you know what they say: freaks attract freaks." Jessica seemd to finish her little commentary and the rest of The Beautiful Ones started laughing uncontrollably. Rage and hate built up inside Gaz with no possible release.  
  
"I said, SHUT UP!!" Gaz shrieked, laying a punch straight into Jessica's face and sending her straight to the floor. Jessica got up and nursed a bleeding nose as Gaz lunged for her, but Chunk got in her way, punching her in the cheek and sending her reeling. She recovered quickly, and sent a kick into Chunk's crotch, but then Torque and Poonchy joined in the efforts. To attack The Beautiful Ones was sacrilege of the highest order, and those who did were punished severely.   
  
"Kill the bitch!" ordered Jessica, and they complied, laying into her as hard as they could, more of them joining in the fight against Gaz, who had turned into something of a rabid animal, punching and kicking and biting, leaving several of them with deep bruises. But even Gaz couldn't last against the cream of the royalty's personal guard.  
  
"LEAVE HER ALONE!!" yelled Zim, throwing himself into the maelstrom. Trying to pull Gaz free of the murderous mob, he had let his emotions get in the way of his Irken-trained common sense. But there was nothing to be done, watching Gaz suffer was torture for him. He managed to pull Gaz out, but as she was pulled free they were thrown into one another's grasp. As they landed on the floor their lips locked in a passionate exchange, much like the previous night. As their beings seemed to merge into each other, Zim pulled away from their grasp. Staring at Gaz with a look of desperation, he ran from the cafeteria, the laughter of the skoolchildren ringing in his head.  
  
Dib had sat quietly during the whole exchange. He merely gave a cursory, hate-filled glance at the dejected Gaz on the floor, then stared ahead again...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	13. Comprimised

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Twelve: Compromised  
  
Zim hurriedly shut the door to his base behind him, breathing heavily. What the hell had he just done? If he was going to do something like that that again, he might as well be holding up a giant sign saying 'I am a space alien, you can extract my organs now'. He was meant to keep a low profile so to assist in his invasion, and that WAS NOT LOW PROFILE! He wiped some sweat off his brow, and quickly became aware of the particles of Gaz still clinging to his tongue.  
  
Gir was sitting on the couch munching through his thirty-fifth helping of brownies, since ever since Zim left the house yesterday without warning, he had been caught in kind of a loop. Zim had never been away fro his base for so long, as he was normally rather paranoid about these sort of things. But Gir's attention was now focused on Zim in that maniacally pleased way that only Gir could muster.  
  
"Awww...master all sad-looking! Wanna brownie? They're nice 'n brown! What? THESE ARE MINE! GET YOUR OWN! BROWNIE STEALER! ARRRGGGHHH!! Have one!" Gir's ADD-induced antics didn't seem to take Zim's mind off the events of the past 24 hours. His mind must have been warped by being among these human parasites for so long. Yes, that was probably it.  
  
"Gir, I think I need a vacation," Zim declared, "I need to get away from this ball of filth for a couple of weeks, just to clear my brainmeats. I think the Tallest would be pleased with my progress enough. They have to marvel at my immense SUPERIORITY!" Gir's attention had refocused back to the brownies however, so all he caught was 'vacation', which was enough for him to go on another bout of immense stupidity.  
  
"Ooooh! VACATION! VACATION! WE'RE GOING ON VACATION!" Gir sang with a mouth full of brownies, "can we go to Disney Planet?" Gir looked at Zim with immense hope in his eyes and chocolate caked around his mouth.  
  
"Ugh...Disney Planet..." shuddered Zim, never liked the place, never will, the depressed adolescents in furry animal costumes gave him nightmares, "no Gir, I need somewhere where I can just be among my own kind again. This planet has started to infect me with such base concepts as...egh...LOVE!" Zim spat out the last word in the sentence, as if it was somehow poisonos to his mouth. That thought brought him back to the disturbing though of Gaz-salliva. But Gir was oblivious to his master's distress.  
  
"Master likes someone!" Gir managed to deduce, which was quite an achievement, "that Gaz-human was pretty, I made her brownies! Where did they go? WHERE DID THE BROWNIES GO!? BWAAAAAAAA!!" Gir began bawling at the loss of the mounds of chocolatey goodness that he had ingested over the past 20 hours straight. But Zim seemed physically shocked at the mention of Gaz.  
  
"NO! It wasn't like that! Not at all!" Zim yelled to himself as much as to Gir, "it was a sympton of being on this planet for so long! It affected my brain somehow. I can't LOVE a human! I...can't..." Zim's thoughts trailed off. What did he even see in Gaz? What did Gaz see in him? They're both outcasts, he supposed. And they both just wanted to be left alone. And they both wouldn't shed too many tears over the annihilation of the human species. But that was different for him! It was the pressures of the mission! Nothing to do with himself whatsoever.  
  
But then he thought back to his days when he was amongst Irkens. He was an outcast then to, though he didn't want to admit it. All the Irkens seemed to avoid him for being so dangerous, regarded him as psychopathic and insane. He just wanted attention, really. He was always a loner, and he hit back involutarily, causing horrible pain to those around him for the simple act of malice itself. It was the only way he could find happiness. He saw Gaz as someone he could relate to, a stranger on her own planet.  
  
"You can't? Oh well," Gir commented, "can we go to South America! They've got Llamas!" Gir's quiet acceptance of Zim's emotional well-being seemed to reassure Zim somehow. Maybe he was just going crazy from human contact. A vacation would do him some good. That and to be rid of Gaz's remains on his tongue.  
  
"Gir! We leave for Irk in the morning! Ready the voot cruiser!" Zim ordered, "I'm just going to wash my mouth out for a few minutes..." Zim walked towards the toilet and flushed himself down to the base. If he had glanced towards the window he might have noticed Dib, watching them intently out of sight of the lawn gnomes. Not taking notes, not observing any actions, just merely watching with a cold look out in his eye...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	14. Target

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Thirteen: Target  
  
Gaz entered the bathroom and switched on the light over the sink, illuminating herself in the mirror. Her face was cut and bruised from repeated contact with fists and soles. She grabbed a cloth, soaked it in water and held it up to her wounds, wincing as the damp cloth came into contact with her open flesh. She was making a concerted effort not to cry. She never showed weakness, not to other people, not even to herself.  
  
It was a bit late for that though wasn't it? She had been rescued, by a green-skinned egomaniac no less, and had puored her love on her rescuer like some damsel in distress. If anyone saw her fighting they would quickly conclude that she was no damsel, as she had left many of her attackers in much the same condition as she was now. But that very last scene, surrendering herself like that, receiving the bout of cruel laughter, it was too much.  
  
She saw herself in the mirror, but no longer saw a head-strong, independent person looking back. She saw a pathetic little girl. She noticed a tear was beginning to run down her cheek. Inflamed at this act of weakness she drew her fist up and smashed the mirror. Gaz ignored the deep cuts this had inflicted on her hand. Pain was a sympton of weakness. And she would never be weak again.  
  
Suddenly she perceived a presence entering the house. A draft had entered the bathroom, supposedly from a window opening somewhere. The bathroom light suddenly went out. She quickly drew her own conclusions. She ran from the bathroom into the middle of the house and attempted to get a bearing on where the presence was. The kitchen. She had been classed as a weakling, but she would get her status back. She was going to find the killer, and she was going to kill it.  
  
Gaz crept into the kitchen as quietly as she could, never daring to turn on the light in case she might betray her position. The lights were probably all out anyway. She kept to the shadows around the base of the kitchen, keeping as silent as possible. The killer was moving in much the same way, but she could perceive where it was, as she had years of experience doing this.  
  
Professor Membrane was away on a scientific conference in Uruguay, and Dib was...Dib was just 'out', she never asked where. She already knew. There was no other target but her in the house, so she decided to use that as an advantage. She crept into the centre of the kitchen, exposing herself to the thing. A casual observer wouldn't notice Gaz becoming any more obvious than she used to, but to a trained stalker it made all the difference in the world.  
  
She sensed the killer approaching behind her. Waiting for it to draw in close, she suddenly lunged in the direction of the presence. But no one was there. Fatally confused, she punched and kicked in every conceivable direction the presence might be. But the killer managed to grab her from behind unnoticed. Gaz finally relented. She had been beaten at her own game. She offered no resistance as the feel of cold steel entered her gut. The killer's final comment was revealing.  
  
"Freaks attract freaks..."  
  
NO! She was NOT going to be the victim, not of this psycho and not of ANYONE! As the knife still worked it's way towards Gaz's major organs she elbowed the figure behind her, sending it to the floor momentarily. Clutching the gaping wound in her abdomen, she ran from the kitchen towards any avenue of escape. She first thought of the front door, but found it barred and shut. Her mind worked quickly as the killer approached from behind her, recovering from the brief shock. It must have planned it's own way out, Gaz thought.  
  
And there it was, next to the door the window was slightly ajar, the killer's way in and out of the killing grounds. Gaz ran to the window and forced it open, feeling the killer's loose grip on her foot as she dropped to the other side. The fall irritated her wound, and as she winced she looked down at her dress. It was covered in her own blood. She began feeling queezy as the blood loss affected her mental state. She saw the killer slowly open the window above her.  
  
Unless she did something dramatic then this late surge in her prospects would have been all for nothing. She noticed a car drive along the road in front of her. Yes, that would do it. She got up and limped as fast as she could towards the road. The path in front of her became hazy and disorientating as the blood loss continued to affect her. She still clung to her wound as the killer approached her from behind, promising nothing but malice.  
  
As she reached the road too much of her senses had already drained out of her. Bereft of alternatives she flung herself into the path of an oncoming car. The driver swerved to avoid her and braked to a halt mere inches from her blood-soaked body. The car's headlights briefly illuminated the path the killer was on, but it was long gone before Gaz had a chance to look. She wouldn't have been able to anyway, as the loss of blood had finally forced her into unconsciousness...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	15. Ulterior Motive

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Fourteen: Ulterior motive  
  
Dib ran into the hospital in a state of abject fear. He wasn't sure what happened, just that he received a call on his wrist-phone that his sister was in an emergency room. He ran towards the desk and demanded to know where Gaz was, rapping the table irritably as the clerk seemed to take her time about it. After what seemed an excessive amount of time she pointed him in the direction of the recovery ward. Dib started running there before she even had a chance to finish her sentence.  
  
Stupid idiot, Dib lambasted himself, he should have KNOWN. After an outburst like that this lunchtime how could the killer NOT pick Gaz as it's next target? She had been attacked only the night before, but he had been too pre-occupied with events to give it any serious thought. He burst through the doors to find Gaz sitting up on the side of a bed, looking very glum and clutching a set of newly received stitches.  
  
"GAZ!" Dib yelled in a mixture of fear and joy, which was a fairly odd combination, "what happened! Are you allright!?" Gaz stirred to look up at Dib, seemingly irritated at his presence.  
  
"I was the victim, Dib," Gaz said with a hint of desperation, "I'm never the victim. Victimising is what happens to other people! Not to me, Dib! NEVER TO ME!" A lot of truth was held in this statement. She had brought pain and misery down on other people, but when someone tried the same thing with her, she would always respond with sweet, terrible vengeance. The feeling of helplessness was alien to her, but she felt it then. And one moment of despair in her world was always one moment too much.  
  
"Gaz, don't worry! I'll find who did this and you can kick it's ass any way you want!" Dib reassured, sensing the source of his sister's anxiety, "did you get any impression as to who it was?" Dib's investigation had come to something of a juddering halt since last night, and this was the best lead he had.  
  
"It said something, can't remember what it was," Gaz remembered, "it was all distorted, as if that thing was tapping into the basest instincts of the human soul." This was unusually melodramatic for Gaz, but still fairly apt. Whatever that thing was, it wasn't 'inhuman' in the typical sense of the word. If anything, it was too human.  
  
"Did you pick up any clue who the voice was?" asked Dib, dtermined to lynch whoever did this to Gaz, "ANY clue at all? Gender? Age? Where it was going?"  
  
"No, no wait! I remember what it said! 'Freaks attract freaks', that must mean..." waves of realisation crept over Gaz's face, "it must be going after Zim! We have to warn..." Gaz jumped off the bed but promptly cringed in pain, pulling herself back onto the bed. She wasn't going anywhere.  
  
"I'll warn him, Gaz," Dib reassured, "this is our best chance of catching whatever it is. You won't have to be a victim anymore!" On this note Dib left Gaz, still nursing her wounded pride, as well as a wounded lower torso. Dib ran out of the hospital as fast as he could, hoping to catch the killer in time.  
  
His mind raced with all kinds of possible conclusions. He had never seen Gaz so down before, she was normally so hyper, so full of energy, so willing to go through whatever steps were necessary to get what she wanted. He guessed that near-fatal blood loss would do that to a person, but soon, he reassured himself, everything would be back to normal. Gaz would return to terrorizing the neighbourhood, he would return to his paranormal studies, and the rest of the skool would be truly thankful for once. Zim's house came into view, and he knew that as soon as he rescued Zim he would...  
  
Wait, RESCUE Zim? Doubts entered Dib's mind as his sprint turned into more of a jog. Zim had been his enemy for the past year with his continued attempts to overthrow mankind. Now with the business between him and Gaz he had even more reason to despise him. The jog became a brisk walk. And would the skool really be thankful? Many of them hadn't even noticed that people were missing, too wrapped up in their worship of The Beautiful Ones and their own petty lives to notice the rampaging cull of people like him. His walk became a crawl.  
  
Things, even after this, would never be normal. His trust in his sister had been irreparably damaged, and after that he HAD threatened to kill him if he ever touched her again, which he promptly did. The crawl came to a complete stop, Dib looked at Zim's house thoughtfully, then turned away to walk back towards the hospital...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	16. Your Knifey Fate

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Fifteen: Your knifey fate  
  
A gargle was heard in the depths of Zim's secret base, followed by a spit. Throughout the claustrophobic passageways of the immense artificial structure, the sounds of Zim clearing his mouth out with excessive amounts of patented Irken Gob-o-Clean reverberated round the place. Zim could be found in a small alcove apart from the main complex with a little night-light and various instruments tailored towards meeting your typical Irken's hygeinic needs.  
  
Zim paused for a moment and felt his tongue. Nope, still bits of Gaz on it. He pured another bottle of Gob-o-Clean straight into his mouth and began smooshing away. Filthy human tongue particles, moaned Zim. Why do humans do that anyway? It's not exactly hygeinic, and it did leave the room open for all kinds of horrible diseases. Was it meant to be pleasant? The both of them apparently thought so at the time, though looking back it got harder and harder to really fathom WHY.  
  
Zim opened his mouth to the ceiling and gargled some more before spitting into the sink before him. He felt his tongue again but could still detect Gaz on it. Maybe he was being paranoid, Zim thought to himself. After all, you have been constantly washing your mouth for the past two hours, the bits of salliva MUST have disappeared by now. No, decided Zim defiantly, he was going to continue this even if it killed him. He emptied yet another bottle of Gob-o-Clean into his mouth and threw it on the vast pile collecting behind him. But an abrupt pang on the tannoy made Zim swallow the lot, bringing him to the verge of vomiting.  
  
"URRAGH! What is it Gir!?" Zim asked irritably, "if you're gonna bug me about what sun lotion you should pack I'd rather you not both-" Zim was interupted by a shrill scream that erupted from the speakers, which gradually seemed to deconstruct into it's synthesised parts, only ending when a sharp buzz from the speaker indicated that communications were no longer functioning.  
  
Puzzled, Zim determined to head to the central complex to find out what was going on with the base's systems. He marched out of the alcove along the corridor to an open elevator, where he ordered the computer to take him to the main console. The computer didn't respond. Puzzled, Zim called for the computer again, only to be witness the lights throughout the base begin to flicker on and off rapidly.  
  
"What the hell is going on?" Zim wondered, deciding to make his own way to the main console room. He opened up an adjoining access tube and began to crawl through it. The flickering of the lights irritated his eyes, and he began to wonder if that psychopath was behind it in any way. He had been made fun of that lunch, yes, but so had Gaz.  
  
Gaz! Zim became immensely worried, and quickened his pace along the access shaft, shooting past the primary power core access. Maybe she'd been hurt, maybe she'd been...but Zim stopped himself going further. She was just another human, Zim attempted to reassure himself, and one less human was good for his mission. And she could take care of herself. Yeah. He remained wracked with uncertainty.  
  
He eventually reached the central console. The screens in front of the seat were fluctuating at random. As soon as he reached for one console, it would seemingly disappear and turn into another one a few seconds later. On further inspection he saw that the wires behind it had been severed.  
  
A sinking feeling developed in his squeegily-spooch. His eyes darted around the room, sensing for a presence in the lab but finding none in evidence. He peered down at himself and saw that he was exposed in the open. Letting out a short, sharp shriek, he made a run for the access shaft again. He was well along it when the lights permanently shorted out.  
  
He paused in the darkness, pondering his next move. Where would the thing be? The lights could only really be shorted out at the primary power core. His sinking feeling deepened as he slowly turned his head towards the primary power core access panel beside him. AS if on command the panel burst open and a sharp metal object was lunged across the tube Zim was in.  
  
Zim ducked out of the way but the knife still sliced through his left arm. He let out a shrill cry and retreated back along the shaft as a dangerous, spiteful figure emerged in the darkness before him. Zim clutched onto his wounded arm and disappeared through an adjoining passageway, hoping to lose it in the tunnels...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	17. Mission Aborted

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Sixteen: Mission aborted  
  
Irken blood isn't pleasant to look at. You may think that human blood would be just as unpleasant as well, but take away all the extraneous features and just look at the blood, and you'll find that it at least makes an effort to be aesthetically pleasing. Not Irken blood, a sickly shade of yellowish-green that would probably make you vomit BEFORE you saw the body it came from. But one saving grace of Irken blood, aesthetically speaking, is that it glows in the dark.  
  
Zim was right now REALLY wishing that weren't true. He clung on to his wounded arm as he clambered through the claustrophobic passageways. He had hoped to lose it in the tunnels, but the trail of blood that lit the way to him like liquefied cats-eyes put something of a damper on that plan. Instead he simply wanted to find a way to the surface as quickly as possible. At least on the surface, he had an equal footing with the thing chasing him.  
  
He dropped into a service station, vaguely illuminated by a power conduit above. It was spacious, and he could at least see anyone who attacked him. So he turned around and decided to make a stand. He extended his spider legs to obliterate anything that appeared in the passageway, but nothing seemed to appear. Confused, he looked behind himself to find that where legs should have been, there was nothing but stumps. He had been so preoccupied the past day that he'd forgot to regenerate them.  
  
"ACK!" exclaimed Zim, wincing as his arm wound became irritated. He moved towards anothe shaft entrance when the light from the conduit abruptly ceased. He began to panic, darting his eyes in all directions until he saw that a part of his glow-in-the-dark trail of blood was blocked out, and the block-out was approaching him. Zim, mortified in terror, clambered through the service shaft just as a swipe from a knife pierced his left leg.  
  
Letting out a short shriek of pain, he contined on, now in agony every second crawl he made. He needed to get up, and quickly. At that moment he finally saw the elevator shaft access, which would take him all the way to the surface. Swinging onto a nearby ladder, he climbed as fast as his thigh-wound would allow. Eventually reaching the surface, he banged open the trash-can and clambered into the kitchen.  
  
Taking a moment to catch his breath, he limped towards the living room when he tripped over something. As he looked down, he noticed he had stumbled over a pile of disassembled circuits and half-digested brownies. These were Gir's remains. Normally, Zim would shed few tears over the severely retarded contraption, but he felt that he really needed the robot at the moment, which was probably why it was in pieces on the floor. The scream he heard over the speakers must have come from him.  
  
Picking himself up and running over to the door, he got there just in time to see it disappear, as the holographic display abruptly changed into a bricked wall. Heading desperately towards the other possible exits, he saw that they were bricked-up too, which also produced the desired effect that the house was now in complete darkness. Not even moonlight now penetrated his surroundings.  
  
His mission couldn't end like this, thought Zim. It was meant to end with him receiving medals from the Tallest commending him on being such a super-genius. It was meant to end with him laughing at the horrible demise of his enemies, not cold and alone and at the mercy of a lone psycho. He hid in a corner and tried to stay as silent as he could, hoping the killer would think that he had managed to flee.  
  
And then he saw it, at the very periphery of his perception he could perceive a figure walking into the darkened living room, carefully tracing it's steps. It drew closer to Zim, apparently knowing where he was. It was almost among him when it paused, taking a moment to get it's bearings, then moved to another corner of the room. Zim needed someone. Anyone. He wanted to get out of this situation alive. And constantly going through his mind was the one person who could possibly have any chance of helping him.  
  
"Gaz..." Zim whimpered, immediately attracting the killer's attention. It headed straight for him, and before he could realise his mistake he had already been caught in an arm-lock. Struggling desperately against it's grip, Zim could only watch in trepidation as the figure brought the knife down deep into his torso. Blood immediately leaked out onto the floor in a pretty glow-in-the-dark display of unwarranted malice. Zim could feel the blood filling up his throat as his major organs leaked into each other. He had no time before the knife was plunged into him a second time, this time ripping through major arteries. Zim was rapidly becoming a gibbering wreck, wracked with pain and sending out his last death throes, he lost consciousness as the killer's calling card left it's imprint on his hearing.  
  
"Weirdo..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	18. Mourning In Her Own Way

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Seventeen: Mourning in her own way  
  
The first to know of Zim's death, apart from the thing that killed him obviously, was a technician aboard the Tallest's capital ship, the Massive, upon receiving an automated signal from Zim's pak telling him that all vital functions had ceased. Within minutes every planet in the Irken Empire erupted into spontaneous shows of immense joy, celebrating the untimely death of the one who brought such misery and destruction down on their people. Those few who actually cared were roundly lynched by the mob.  
  
Back on Earth, however, no one really knew the fate of Zim, and few would with any honesty have actually cared. One of the two people who did, Gaz, was sitting up on her bed playing a Game Slave she found in the recreation room. It was the older model, but she needed something to pass the time, as she had already managed to send her fellow patient to psychiatric help.  
  
She had yet to progress past the first level as her mind wasn't actually on the game itself, more on the green, holographic structure half a mile away. There was a loon about to use it's occupant's insides as decoration, but she hoped beyond hope that Dib had managed to reach him in time. Speak of the devil, Dib was entering the ward now. Gaz sat on the side of the hospital bed and waited expectantly.  
  
"Gaz, I'm sorry but..." Dib began, but Gaz didn't hear the rest of the sentence. Her Game Slave dropped to the floor and broke, her mind buzzing with incomprehension. Studying Dib closely, incomprehension quickly turned to anger, as she quickly guessed what was going on.  
  
"You never went to Zim's house did you?" Gaz accused, climbing off the bed, "you just left him there to die, didn't you?" Gaz said this with the kind of quiet, sultry expression that suggested that the occupant of the voice was beyond anger. Her teeth were gritted, her eyes were narrowed, and her left eye was beginning to twitch spasmodically.  
  
"What? No!" Dib said, trying to reassure her, "I'm telling you, he was dead when I got there!" Dib couldn't have possibly known this as he didn't, actually, go there, but it was a fairly educated guess. But Gaz was unimpressed as she advanced on Dib and picked him up by the throat, using her other hand to delve into his pockets. She took out some biscuity substance.  
  
"Crumbs," concluded Gaz, "you spent the past hour in a cafe. Zim is probably being gutted by some psycho and YOU WERE EATING IN A CAFE!?" Gaz's eyes widened as she flung Dib into a nearby table, bruising the back of his head. Gaz clutched her gut wound as she marched out of the ward, pushing an orderly out of her way.  
  
Gaz limped to outside the hospital and peered towards the direction of Zim's house. She would never get there in time. Spying an approaching bike she got into position and jumped at it as it went past, knocking the rider into the pavement. She got into the seat, wincing as she pulled on her stitches, and began to pedal. Dib had only just left the hospital as she sped off. Dib paused at the end of the driveway, he would never be able to catch up with her.  
  
She travelled along the road in a haze, unable to comprehensively form any thoughts. The only common thread in the maelstrom forming in her head was the determination to get to Zim's house. She pedaled as fast as her wounds would allow, a sharp pain traveling through her body every time she rotated the pedals. She spied Zim's house in the distance and pulled up onto the sidewalk in expectation.  
  
She fell off the bike as she approached the house and began running. The act of falling off the bike had sent a sharp shock emanating from her wound. She limped on regardless, cursing her own body for being so slow. She fell against the now featureless front wall and banged it repeatedly as heavily as her fists would allow, screaming at the top of her lungs and crying her eyes out.  
  
Abruptly the wall seemed to disappear, and the interior infrastructure of house fell as she did. She dropped into a pool of glowing fluid, but she hesitated getting up as her gut wound sent further pain coarsing through her system. Panting heavily, she eventually managed to pick herself up and looked at the yellowish-green substance clinging to her face in dumbed incomprehension.  
  
She looked along the pool to it's source, and saw a withered green figure lying face down in the mud, cold and motionless. She clambered over to the figure and turned it towards her, seeing a wrinkled, drained Zim staring back at her. The red in his eyes seemed to have been drained out of him. At the sight of him all the sobbing and screaming that had characterised her past few minutes abruptly ceased. She ceased showing any kind of feeling, kneeling in the mud surrounding the house, drained of emotion.  
  
She remained like this for a few minutes, unable to comprehend what had just happened. She had turned back into the victim. The look of vacant desperation on her face turned into something approaching spiteful determination. She buried Zim's body and began walking into the city, her head spinning with plans of vengeance and malice...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	19. Columbine Elementary

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Eighteen: Columbine elementary  
  
Dib was getting increasingly worried as time went on. It was the next day, and the world had finally become aware of Zim's death. Although nominally he had 'disappeared', as the police hadn't actually been called to the scene, and all that was left of Zim's house was a pile of rubble, but there was no doubt that he was dead. Dib wasn't sure what to feel about this. He had wished for his death the past day, hell he was practically responsible for it, and though he no longer had any proof of alien existence, he was nevertheless grotesquely satisfied with the way things had turned out.  
  
But he was worried about his death's effects on Gaz. Only two days ago, there was no perceptible sign that she would have even given a shit, but her own experiences with the killer, and this obsession with being the 'victim' might have pushed her over the edge. She hadn't come home after that, and the hospital hadn't heard from her, and they were as concerned as he was, as she had left against the doctor's recommendation. That gut wound could turn pretty nasty at any moment.  
  
He sat in class. The gaps were becoming progressively more noticeable, especially Zim's across the room from him. He tried to ignore it, as it was no use dwelling on something that, in his mind, needed to be done. No one else seemed to have noticed his disappearance, which went to show how much the people around him were wrapped up in their own worlds to even notice the death of 'losers'. The Beautiful Ones were all in evidence, doing some last minute gossiping and judging before class began. Ms. Bitters appeared from the shadows as the bell rung, signifying that class had begun.  
  
"Now, due to the horrible screaming deaths of much of this student body, the skool board has considered giving you children a day off to recuperate," intoned Ms. Bitters, filling the student's bodies with hope, I mean who cared about a few deaths so long as they got a day off skool, "but I successfully argued that another day of skool would more effectively give over the impression that it's wrong to kill people-" Ms. Bitters was vut off as the door to the class burst open abruptly and a shot of shrapnel embedded Ms. Bitters to the far wall. She murmered a vague 'I knew this would happen eventually' as she slumped to the floor, air wheezing out of her encrusted insides. Through the door Gaz appeared with a severly crazed look on her face, wielding a sawn-off shotgun. Dib was frozen in sheer surprise.  
  
"ANYONE NOTICE SOME PSYCHO-KILLER AROUND HERE!?" Gaz shrieked in maddened tones, flinging the gun around randomly at the class, "about so high? Never seen without a knife? No you probably wouldn't have as this killer apparently only kills people YOU DON'T SEEM TO LIKE! You send this thing out to kill people like us, the people who seem to annoy you by EXISTING! WELL I'M NOT STANDING FOR THIS ANYMORE!" Gaz continued on this nonsensical rant as she pointed the gun at Zita. She bagan sweating at the prospect of a face full of shrapnel.  
  
"Look, I know we got off to a bad start, but surely we can be rea-" Zita began, her conversation ended as Gaz pulled the trigger on the shotgun. Shrapnel burst from the gun and entered Zita's head, chewing up her brainmeats before bursting through the other side of her skull, leaving nothing holding her head together. Her brains ended up covering Chunk behind her and the rest of her skull was embedded in his desk. Her beheaded corpse slumped to the floor, spreading blood all over the floor. The rest of the class remained frozen in their seats, some began to freak out. Gaz barely blinked.  
  
"Got off to a bad start? We never HAD a start my poor, skulless Zita," Gaz ranted, moving along the class, "I was just another loner, another freak, another one for you people to play with, like Zim was. And you're acting surprised that we're fighting back? That's probably why you started killing us wasn't it? WE STARTED FIGHTING BACK!" Gaz turned her attention to Sarah, who was sweating heavily.  
  
"Gaz! Don't you realise what you're doing is...well...WRONG!?" Sarah tried to reason. Fresh blood-stains were appearing on Gaz's dress, her own. Her gut-wound had opened up under the strain and the blood-loss was making her already precarious mental state even more unstable.  
  
"Oh, didn't you realise? Right and wrong are purely subjective," Gaz ranted, her left eye twitching dangerously, "let me ask you this, is it right to tease and bully those of us that don't meet YOU'RE standards of what a human being is supposed to be? Stifling them in a claustrophobic environment of subserviance and despair? Is that right? No." Gaz fired again, sending shrapnel through Sarah's upper torso, ripping up her heart and lungs and killing her instantly. Blood flowed down her dress and out of her mouth as she bounced off the back of her seat and slumped head-first onto the desk. "BUT IT CAN'T BE WRONG CAN IT!?" Gaz continued the conversation posthumously.  
  
Dib began to make his move. She was rarely stable at the best of times, but she had gone over the edge into insanity. She had moved through the class to point the gun straight at Jessica. In contrast to the other children, she barely moved a muscle. To point a weapon at The Beautiful Ones was beyond sacrilege, it was blasphemy, and she didn't recognise blasphemers.  
  
"Did you send it, Jessica?" Gaz accused, "did our presence TIRE you to the extent that you got someone to pick us off? One by one? Why do you hate us Jessica? WHY DO YOU HATE US!? WE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU! OR YOUR PRECIOUS MINIONS! BUT YOU STILL WANT US DEAD! WHY!? WHY!!!!!!?????" Gaz screamed at the top of her lungs. She was breaking down into tears, but Jessica just stared at her icily.  
  
"GO TO HELL!!" Jessica cried. Gaz squeezed the trigger finger, but she was pinned to the wall by Dib, who had managed to sneak up behind her, before she could let loose the shrapnel. She gazed upon him in utter fury, but her re-opened wound had sapped her strength to resist.  
  
"I'M NOT THE VICTIM!" screamed Gaz, tears streaming down her face, "I'M NOT! I NEVER WAS! I...I just..." Gaz gripped her head as the strains to her body became excessive. She broke down into sobbing and her gun dropped onto the floor with a clatter. At the sound of the dropping gun the rest of the class got up from their seats and ran from their presence, all except Jessica. The sound of police sirens could be heard outside. Gaz's sobbing broke Dib's heart, and he embraced her in a hug as she began collapsing to the floor from the blood-loss...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	20. Custody

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Nineteen: Custody  
  
It had been some hours since the massacre at the skool, and Dib, Gaz and Jessica were sitting in front of a table in the local Police Precinct. Gaz sat in the centre. Her wound had been re-stitched by the Police surgeon but she was still teetering on the edge of consciouness somewhat. However, she seemed much more stable than she did that morning, though her cuffed hands meant that no one was still going to take any chances. Dib sat to her left. He had been trying to comfort her, but had given up as her state became increasingly catatonic. Jessica sat to her right, though it was obvious from her crossed arms and stern expression that she would rather be either home or in a club somewhere.  
  
A Police minder sat in the corner of the room to keep everyone out of trouble. They had been left in here for around half an hour now as the investigating detective had momentarily left the office. Gaz stared down at the floor, face without expression. She had remained in the same dress she had worn when the killer first attacked, and despite all attempts to clean her up she still looked like an extra from 'Carrie'. Dib looked on her mournfully, but Jessica was getting increasingly eager to leave.  
  
"Can't I go now?" Jessica asked inconsiderately, "I don't even know why I'm HERE in the first place! My dad is going to have serious words with your chief if I don't get out of here soon..." The Policeman in the corner was getting impatient with her hectoring. He had been unable to get any doughnuts because of his minding job and he was suffering withdrawal symptoms.  
  
"You had a gun pointed at you," the Policeman answered irritably, "I think the detective would like to know why." This answer didn't satisfy Jessica at all. She was the most popular kid at skool, she didn't need to be lectured to by an inferior doughnut-deprived underling.  
  
"She's a psycho!" Jessica said, demonstrating an incredible lack of subtlety, "what more reason could she possibly need! She killed everyone because she was a FREAK and a WEIRDO! Right, question answered, CAN I GO NOW!?" Dib angrily turned his attention to Jessica. Gaz remained catatonic.  
  
"You stupid, air-headed, single-minded, egotistical, holier-than-thou BITCH!" Dib retorted to her brazen stupidity, "not EVERYTHING in this world revolves around YOU y'know! Believe it or not, the people you judge DO have such a thing as FEELINGS! They aren't the reserve of you and your precious gang of gossipy little fucks." Jessica took considerable offense to this. She was the leader of The Beautiful Ones, she was beyond criticism. Who was this interloper to pass judgement on her?  
  
"That's just the kind of thing you WOULD say, Dib," Jessica answered with an imposed air of authority, "you're the leader of the freak squad aren't you? With all your 'para...thingy' and yelling out loud and stuff. Why can't you be normal? Oh no...wait. You can't. You're incapable of it..." Dib was getting increasingly inflamed by her sheer pig-headedness. Gaz didn't even take an interest.  
  
"THERE YOU GO AGAIN, always using yourself as some frame of reference for what's considered 'normal'!" Dib yelled, "well, if you're what I'd turn into if I ever became normal then quite frankly I'd rather remain a freak! Being a freak is better than being inhuman." Jessica was getting increasingly annoyed as well. Inhuman? She was BETTER than human! All mere mortals bent down to kiss her feet. Any who didn't were freaks and outcasts who deserved to die.  
  
"Huh, well if being me is so bad, then why am I so popular?" said Jessica, taking that standpoint, "would you rather be around friends who knew and cared about you, or stuck in your own little unpopular hole where only losers visit?" Dib had always been an outcast, for no other reason than he saw what other people refused to believe. If the price of friendship was becoming a mindless, subserviant drone then he was quite prepared to stay alone.  
  
"THOSE PEOPLE AREN'T YOUR FRIENDS! THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU!" Dib at the very least wanted Jessica to recognise that MAYBE she had done something wrong, "they just stay around you so that your 'popularity' might run off on them somehow! God, I'm starting to wish that I did let Gaz pull that fucking trigger!" Jessica was stunned by this emotional outburst, but before she could give another brain-dead reply the lights in the room suddenly switched off. The Policeman in the corner, who had temporarily been caught up in all the drama, looked puzzled as he searched around for the source of the interference. Gaz looked up for the first time since she entered the precinct. She knew that calling card anywhere.  
  
"It's here..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	21. To Protect And To Serve

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Twenty: To protect and to serve  
  
"Hello? HELLO!? Aw, jeez..." the secretary banged the phone on the desk, knowing full well that it wouldn't do any good. The lights had gone out and the phones had been cut off. If the secretary had been in an analytical state of mind then the fact that these were two completely seperate systems would have been cause for concern. But at the moment she was merely pissed. A sudden movement in the shadows briefly attracted her attention, but she just passed it off as another cop in a hurry. Trying to find some avenue of communication that worked, she eventually found that the remote radio was still functioning. But before she could speak into it the air from her lungs that was meant to call for help began escaping from her neck through a long slit made by a knife, it's holder retreating back into the shadows as the secretary slumped forward onto the desk, soaking an open enquiries book in deep crimson.  
  
Meanwhile, in the detective's office, the Policeman ordered to mind for the group of kids got up and looked out the door, trying to find out what was going on. Muffled screams could be heard every once in a while in the depths of the precinct, and were getting progressively closer to the room. Dib got up with a puzzled look, while Jessica remained looking annoyed on the chair. Gaz looked frightened. When Gaz, of all people, starts looking frightened, then you know something was horribly wrong.  
  
"What the hell is going on?" the cop muttered to himself, "you kids stay here, I'll find out what's happening..." The cop ran out of the door and locked it behind him, unwittingly trapping them in a narrow space. Dib doubted the capability of the cops to stop the thing approaching them.  
  
"We have to get out of here!" Dib warned, looking for a way out of the room. None of the other two seemed to take him seriously.  
  
"He told us to stay right here!" Jessica complained. Dib eventually spotted an air vent, and promptly dragged the table towards it, forming an escape route.  
  
"No argument! I trust those cops about as far as I could throw them," said Dib, grabbing harshly at Jessica's arm and reaching towards Gaz, "you too, Gaz." But Gaz remained still, hands cuffed behind the chair, looking straight ahead and completely frozen in sheer, unutterable fear.  
  
"No escape...no...escape..." Gaz mumbled, traumatised, "you can't...it'll always get you..." Dib was getting irritated, as the shouting and screaming signified that the killer was getting very near. He almost jumped in shock as the door unlocked. All three of of them remained rooted to the spot as it slowly opened, revealing the Police minder with a blank look on his face. A brief moment later he collapsed onto the floor, a knife embedded into the back of his neck. Dib and Jessica stared at the body, at each other, and finally clambered towards the air duct, leaving Gaz behind.  
  
The killer entered the darkened room. It remained unseen, sticking to the shadows. It made towards the truamatised Gaz, briefly comtemplating her, taking the knife out of the cop's back and holding it at Gaz's skin, dragging it across in a subtle, sultry fashion. Gaz remained silent, sweating profously, as the knife made the odd cut on her face. The knife spent a few tension-filled seconds across her neck, and the killer uttered it's usual pre-murder statement...  
  
"Victim..."  
  
The knife was brought away from Gaz's neck and playfully made an incision across her cheek. It knew the source of Gaz's anxiety and wished to exploit it to it's fullest extent. The knife was then brought away as the killer left her presence. There seemed to be no noticeable change in Gaz's expression.  
  
Dib and Jessica clambered through the air duct, trying to find some way out of the maze. Jessica seemed to keep complaining all through the trip about every little inconvenience she could think of, while Dib remained on the lookout for the killer. A sound at the far end brought Dib to a halt. He clambered into an alcove, dragging Jessica with him.  
  
"What are you doing!? GET OFF ME YOU-mmphmph..." Jessica began, ending her complaint as Dib clamped a hand over her mouth.  
  
"(FOR FUCK'S SAKE...SHUT UP!)" Dib whispered urgently, listening intently to the sond approaching. It weaved and turned through the vents, suggesting that the killer had made it's way into the system. They both followed the sound as it approached their position, heading away from them, towards them, behind them, seemingly combing the ducts. The sound eventually reached their proximity and Dib peered out of the alcove towards the direction of the sound. There was nothing there but the sound seemed to still approach them. Dib and Jessica, seemingly reading each other's minds, turned their eyes downwards.  
  
The air duct seemed to burst open, as two dark, gloved hands grabbed the both of them and dragged them out...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	22. Victim

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Twenty-one: Victim  
  
"Losers..."  
  
"Y'know you do have something of a reputation..."  
  
"There's a psycho out there who's better at this thing than I am..."  
  
"You should die just like the rest of 'em!"  
  
"...the weirdo and the psycho, such a perfect match..."  
  
"Freaks attract freaks..."  
  
"Victimising is what happens to other people! Not to me, Dib! NEVER TO ME!"  
  
"I'm telling you, he was dead when I got there!"  
  
"GO TO HELL!"  
  
"I'M NOT THE VICTIM!"  
  
"Victim..."  
  
"Victim..."  
  
"Victim..."  
  
Gaz let out a subdued whimper as she finally managed to push her handcuffs off her wrists. She had fallen off the chair and had been forcing the cuffs off with her feet. She winced as she grabbed onto the table to get up, as the act of taking the cuffs off had pulled at the skin of her hands. She looked at them as she got up. They had been torn to pieces. She felt at the cuts on her face and winced further. At least her gut wound was still intact.  
  
She limped out of the office past the dead cop at it's entrance. She was greeted by a corridor full of dead Police officers, some with slit throats, some disembowelled, some beheaded. The floor was covered in crimson liquid, and the stench of copper was intoxicating. It was doing a good enough job combined with her wounds to make her almost fall unconscious. A cop clambered through the passageway, hissing and panting and gripping onto his neck as blood spurted from it onto the far wall. He managed a few accusing steps towards Gaz and collapsed on the floor.  
  
Gaz squelched through the mound of bodies towards the exit. She had been made the victim once again. She had let her fear get to her. She walked through the death-filled passageways with a crazed expression, frequently on the verge of passing out. She noticed a knife left unattended on the confiscated items rack, and knew immediately what she should do. She picked up the knife, daring herself to remain conscious in order to achieve this and, without a sound, drew it in front of her chest.  
  
She paused. She couldn't end her life like this. She had been made a victim, but killing herself now would simply make her a victim forever. She needed her status back, and she immediately knew how. Gaz took the knife away from her chest and walked out of the building, soaked from head to toe in blood, a frightening apparation. She was going to find the killer, and she was going to kill it.  
  
She was going to kill the one who made her a victim. She was going to kill the one who killed those ostracised by The Beautiful Ones. She was going to kill the only one who could have possibly known about her and Zim. She was going to kill the one who when asked who it was, only received 'nowhere in particular' as an answer from Jessica. She was going to kill a person who had spent the last few years desperately trying to carry favour with The Beautiful Ones, to enter their membership. She was going to kill the one who, despite her best efforts, never received so much as recognition from Jessica and her lackeys. She was going to kill the one who would have done anything to gain recognition and popularity, even kill.  
  
She was going to kill Alex...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	23. Wannabe

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Twenty-Two: Wannabe  
  
Dib grappled at the edge of consciousness. Fuzzy fragments of memory intruded on his brain like underpaid tax collectors. Memories of himself and Gaz, of the first discovered body, of being constantly picked on, of the skool massacre. Dib attempted to sort through the memories to the last one he could remember. Let's see...ummm...two gloved hands bursting through an air duct and dragging him down. Shit.  
  
"Morning sleepyhead! Wait, is it morning? Yeah, it's about 3AM, I guess that's TECHNICALLY morning. I'm glad to see you're awake, since I can't really wait to see some conscious expression to having your insides cut out," Dib attempted to recognise the voice, but he was too disorientated to see, let alone hear, "oh come on! You have to be awake by now! I knocked you on the head ONCE! Oh well, maybe this'll perk you up a bit..."  
  
A searing pain entered Dib's left shoulder, immediately jolting him awake. He felt some piece of metal retreat from the shoulder, but the pain still remained, and he could feel his own blood soaking the fabric of his shirt. His sudden awareness made him take account of his surroundings. It seemed like a perfectly normal living room except without furniture except the bare wooden chairs he and Jessica were tied to, and with the windows and doors boarded up with floorboards. There was no carpet, and there wasn't so much as a lamp shade for the weak light providing illumination for the scene. Whoever built this had put a lot of trouble into turning a scene out of a family sitcom into a scene from 'Reservoir Dogs'. He turned his attention towards his assailant, and saw Alex standing before him. There was something strange about her expression that didn't really suggest 'psycho-killer'. Apart from the blood-drenched dress and stained knife in her hand, she really looked no different than she did on your average day of skool.  
  
"Why?" wheezed Dib. It was the question foremost on his mind, though if he had full control of his brainmeats at the time he might have guessed the answer.  
  
"For her," Alex pointed her knife at a frightened Jessica, and despite the fact that this wasn't actually menat to be threatening, it nevertheless appeared that way, "yep! I did it all for you, Jessica! You know all those freaks and weirdos and losers who you always seemed to hate? Well, I've got rid of them all! I wanted to be like you SO much, Jessica. I brought every kind of fashion you endorsed, every fad you enjoyed. My parents, they didn't like that very much. They were afraid I'd bankrupt them, since we were nowhere NEAR as rich as your parents. But it turns out that construction jobs give out decent amounts of money, I just wasn't getting any. That problem's since been rectified. Their stingy, lifeless bodies are currently stuffed in my closet. I sprayed them to make them smell better! Please can I be one of you?" Alex cupped her hands around her knife with a hopeful look in her eye.  
  
"You...are such...a FREAK!" Jessica condemned, sending a slight twitch through Alex's eye and warning klaxons through Dib's over-sized head.  
  
"(Jessica, can't you appreciate the fact that this lunatics going to KILL YOU!?)" Dib whispered urgently. Alex was beginning to exhibit some signs of nervous laughter. A loon with a knife starts laughing nervously is NEVER, EVER a good sign.  
  
"I don't understand. I did everything you wanted me to! I took up the latest trends, I picked on the outcasts. Better! I ELIMINATED the outcasts! But you still won't let me in? Oh well, another form of persuasion might do the trick," Alex rambled, switching on a nearby flashlight and illuminating two older people in over-priced clothes bound and gagged in a corner. Jessica looked horrified. They were her parents. The parents who gave her triple-figure allowances and poured so much filthy rich love that she was never able to appreciate. Alex got out a piece of paper and started reading it out.  
  
"'The parties represented on this will agree to bequeth our entire collected fortunes to our beloved friend's daughter, Alex, upon our deaths,'" read Alex, rolling the sheet back up, "of course if you let me in, Jessica, your parents would be allowed to live. We have such fun together, Jessica! WE could sit together in the cafeteria and gossip about boys and marvel at each other's jewelry! I've always wanted to be one of you, made it my life's work. After all you've seen, do you think I'm ready to come in yet?" Alex looked hopeful again, her left eye twitching intermittedly and Jessica's parents struggling desperately against her restraints.  
  
"No," Jessica said with finality. She had standards to maintain, after all. Dib looked horrified at Jessica's single-minded denial of even the possibility of reasoning with that insane wannabe. Alex's hopeful smile merged into an angered frown as she moved behind the squirming parents. She first slit the throat of Jessica's mother, and as she gurgled her last drop of life away she moved onto Jessica's scared father, seeing his blood drench his Vesacci suit. Jessica closed her eyes. If she didn't see it, maybe it didn't happen. The torchlight switched off and her parents were never to be seen again.  
  
"Fine then, if you can't accept me then I'm just going to have to settle for the next best thing. I'm going to replace you," Alex declared, drawing her knife close to Jessica's face, "I've already dealt wih your money, now I will have enough cash to drive the trends. But next we'll have to deal with that face of yours. Such a pretty face like yours deserves to be popular. That's one thing we'll have to change..." Jessica began sweating and panting as Alex's knife began stroking gently at her cheek...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	24. Training

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Twenty-three: Training  
  
Ever since the massacre at the Police precinct, the scene in this particular part of the city had taken an eerie resemblance to one of those scenes near the end of disaster movies shortly before the apocalypse when everyone goes insane and starts on a mass looting binge. The story of what happened in the precinct had spread through the city's criminal underworld with uncanny speed, and they quickly decided to take advantage of the oppurtunity while it still presented itself.  
  
Gaz limped through the scene. Every part of her ached, her gut wound was getting increasingly irritated, the cuts on her face were making seeing difficult as blood got inot her eyes, and she almost always nearly passed out as soon as her torn hands seemed to touch something. She was getting used to it by now though, as her right hand grasped a knife, as yet unbloodied by the killing of another. But it's time would come, Gaz was sure of it.  
  
That time was sooner than she thought as she was suddenly swept up off her feet and slammed against the wall. An escaped prisoner from the Precinct's temporary cells had apparently labeled her as a target. Staring straight into his perverted, wide-eyed grin Gaz drew the knife up and buried it in the molester's neck. The criminal dropped Gaz to the ground and grasped at the spurting neck, trying to keep the blood within his system, but to no avail. He collapsed to the ground and left a steadily-expanding pool of blood in his wake.  
  
Gaz looked down at the knife. She had been caught off guard, but had managed to stand her ground. But she made no mistake, she needed to practice at this. She noticed a barrage of flashing blue and red lights coming from the distance down the road, as well as the previously pro-active trouble-makers pausing for a split-second to look at the lights, then run from the scene like headless chickens. A neighbouring precinct must've sent reinforcements, concluded Gaz.  
  
She noticed someone approaching. A looter. He was clutching onto a TV set he had managed to swindle from an electrical store out back. He was normally a fairly law-abiding citizen, but the oppurtunity just seemed to good to pass up. But even if he was a local philanthropist with funds in several charities it would've made no difference to Gaz. She needed someone to practice on and he was as good a candidate as any.  
  
She ran towards the approaching figure. It was at that moment that he had glanced behind himself in fright so he didn't notice Gaz for a few fateful seconds. Gaz jumped onto the TV set and sent a kick in his face, sending him plummeting to the floor. The TV set smashed beside him, and as he tried to get up a knife was sent straight into his chest. He gurgled some incomprehensible curses before his head slammed back against the concrete, dead as a doornail. Gaz stood on the body, gazing at it triumphantly...  
  
But then a terrible pain ripped through Gaz's stomach and she found herself falling to the pavement beside the corpse. She could feel the blood surging up her troat and saw it bursting to the ground in front of her. She collapsed, utterly exhausted. There was a time, not that long ago, when such an exertion wouldn't have even seen her break a sweat. Now, every time she did something even remotely energetic she risked killing herself. She wasn't going to win this way. She needed a plan.  
  
Reluctantly she picked herself up, her joints creaking under the effort. Partially disorientated she hurriedly checked her gut wound. The stitches were still in place but were only holding the wound together very precariously. She managed through considerable effort to eventually stand on two legs. She took a few unsure steps until she could trust her body not to disintegrate beneath her.  
  
She knew the way to Alex's house, if only because she checked the phone book before she left the station. But she had to figure out some coherent plan to combat Alex without abruptly dying three feet away from her. There would be plenty of time, in her current condition it would take at least two hours to get there. She quickly ducked into a corner as the police reinforcements reached her street. They probably wouldn't appreciate what she had in mind.  
  
She waited a few minutes until she was sure the cops had passed her position, then she took a few tentative steps towards Alex's house. Gaz was no longer going to be the victim, but she had to stay alive long enough to be sure of that...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	25. Makeover

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Twenty-Four: Makeover  
  
Jessica was slowly degenerating into a bloody pulp. Her face was covered in bruises and cuts in what was essentially a very perverse facial makeover. The beautician behind this new look was kneeling on the floor nearby, cheerfully wiping away some blood that had stained her knife. Dib had watched through the entire ordeal, and while usually he would be the first to cheer if something horrible happened to Jessica, seeing it slowly build up over the course of three hours was simply too much to bear. That on top of the deep wound in his shoulder that he was certain was probably infected by now, signified an intense need to get out of here. Jessica let out a long, laboured whimper and stirred her head, catching Alex's immediate interest.  
  
"Oooh, hang about! I think Jessica wants to say something!" yelled Alex in glee, pulling up Jessica's head to reveal a bloodied mess underneath, "are you going to let me in, or are you just going to pass out again?" Jessica hesitated. Alex had eschewed poking her eyes out but she wasn't going to remain stalled for long.  
  
"We don't let in pathetic little losers like you, Alex," Jessica informed her, making Dib skip a few heartbeats beside her. Alex wavered a while, then swung a fist straight into Jessica's face in calculated anger. Letting her head flop back down, she turned her attention to Dib.  
  
"Jessica, I've always wanted to be your friend, and I realise that we could only be friends because we're seperate from THEM," Alex said, swerving dangerously back to hero-worship and holding Dib's head to her face, "you were always the 'leader' of the freak patrol weren't you? You're more abnormal than anyone else in skool. I wanted to leave you last as I wanted Jessica to witness this." Alex drew up her knife to Dib's neck, nicking it in places. "This is my last chance to prove myself to you, Jessica," Alex added, "I'm going to kill Dib. For you."  
  
Dib began shaking his head urgently at Jessica, sounding out the message loud and clear that getting him killed was NOT a good thing. A few hours ago she wouldn't have felt anything for Dib's death, but this was different than the other murders. Then it was at a distance, and she had seemingly nothing to do with them. But this, this was up close, this was in her face, this was on her very order. She was going to see another human being have his throat slit if she didn't do something.  
  
"Don't..." Jessica said, one word, mumbled into the distance, that relieved Dib, but appeared to anger Alex more than words could adequately describe. She took the knife away from Dib's neck and pointed it at Jessica.  
  
"Don't? DON'T!? You've gone soft, Jessica! You were the leading beacon of my existence! You were the one I looked to for guidance!" Alex rambled, her attitude towards Jessica twisting and turning in unexpected angles, "you were the person I took after! Whenever I killed a loser, a weirdo, a freak, a nerd, ANYONE, I was thinking of you! I KNEW that this was what you wanted me to do! To rid the world of those who were unclean. To assure the ascent of The Beautiful Ones so that I may join their number. And here you are! Protecting this...THING!"  
  
"You'd never be accepted as one of us, Alex," Jessica continued, "normal people don't kill."  
  
"Well that's nice to know," Dib added mockingly, but Alex was lost in a sea of confusion.  
  
"But...but...how am I supposed to prove myself otherwise?" Alex ranted, tears of insanity running down her cheeks, "I bankrupted myself with the latest trends, that wasn't enough. I made cruel fun of all the people you hated, that wasn't enough. I did EVERYTHING expected of me, AND IT STILL WASN'T ENOUGH! Tell me, please! TELL ME! WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO!?" Alex fell to her knees in front of Jessica, sobbing profusely. Jessica, in her blood-stained tunic, looked very far from a sage, but that was the status placed on her.  
  
"I don't know, Alex," admitted Jessica, "it just happens." Alex's look of sorrow gave way to intense rage after that sentence had been uttered.  
  
"It just happens..." Alex repeated, not daring to wipe away the tears, "nothing HAPPENS, Jessica. Everything has a pattern. A label. Forms of movement. I'm one of The Beautiful Ones. You were just too short-sighted to see. You were never worthy enough to be popular. It was an accident, a perversity of nature. I am going to correct that mistake..." Alex began advancing on Jessica, knife poised, when she heard the sound of the front door being kicked open. Swerving around, she immediately recognized the figure in the doorway.  
  
"Oh look, it's the victim..."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	26. All Change

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Part Twenty-Five: All change  
  
Gaz stood at the entrance to the room. To say she was foreboding meant concentrating on particular aspects. She was holding a knife, covered in blood and holding a cold, calculated look on her face, that is true. But she was also gently swaying, panting heavily, and quite a substantial amount of the blood that soaked her person was her own. Next to Alex, it looked almost laughable. Alex herself was standing in front of her, the last shreds of sadness or anger that dominated her only a few seconds ago completely disappeared. She had her knife poised as well.  
  
"Didn't expect to see you come here," Alex commented, "I thought you would have broke down and gone crying to your mommy by now, VICTIM!" Gaz began circling round the room, as did Alex likewise, carefully scrutinising each other's movements.  
  
"My mom's dead and my dad's in Uruguay, and I'm not even likely to see him when he comes home," Gaz retorted, "I have no one else but myself, and that's enough to send your scrawny ass into the next world." Alex had left her two captives and was going in a complete semi-circle round the room, Gaz always taking an alternate position.  
  
"Fighting words, let's see you try and implement them shall we?" Alex taunted, "your heart would burst under the strain if you so much as lunged at me. You can't put any strength behind your convictions. You're spent, Gaz. You've been usurped. And you're not even going to make it through the night alive. So what's your move going to be, victim?" Gaz had countered Alex in a complete semi-circle round the room and, seeing that she had fallen for it, hurriedly used her knife to cut loose Dib and Jessica, who were now situated before her.  
  
"Hey! HEY!" Alex yelled, taking a running kick towards Gaz, breaking a few ribs and forcing the knife out of her hand near Jessica's chair, "are you TAUNTING me, little Gaz?" Alex kicked her again, making her momentarily cough up blood, "who are you to taunt me? What are you?" Alex stood on Gaz, forcing her against the bare floorboards, "you're a nothing! A loner! A freak! A victim! I'm above you Gaz! I'M A LEADER! A SOVEREIGN! A GODDESS! I'M ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL ONES-" At that moment Alex found a knife embedded deep in her back, and she fell to the floor, face paralysed in surprise.  
  
"WILL!" Jessica stabbed her again, "YOU!" Alex clawed at the floor as Jessica plunged her knife back in, "PLEASE!" the knife entered her again, forcing blood out of her mouth, "JUST!" another stab sent her head falling to the floor with a satisfying thud, "SHUT!" a sixth stab wound shook whatever life she still had out of her body, "UP!" Jessica left the knife in her back, and it was over.  
  
Gaz lay still on the floor, unable to muster any energy. She had done it, she had succeeded, she had shown she was no longer the victim. She slowly picked herself up from the floor. Her gut wound had reopened, and blood appeared to flowing silently out of every orifice. She should probably go to a hospital, but from there a check on her records would inevitably send to at best juvenal hall for the next ten years and at worst an insane asylum. She would return to being a victim.  
  
Light began streaming into the room. Gaz looked up and saw that it was emanating between the floorboards nailed on the patio door. The sun had come up. The light shone something in her eye, it was Alex's knife, lying next to her body. She picked it up. For the first time since this ordeal began, she had power. She would lose it in a moment, so she decided to use it wisely.  
  
She limped over to the door and let the light enter her soul. She drew the knife in front of her and forced the last few reservations out of her mind. Dib, sensing what was going to happen, rushed over to stop her, but was too late. Gaz plunged the knife deep into her chest and finished the work the gut wound started. As she slumped to her knees in front of the light-filled door her expression was not one of despair, but of wide-eyed hope. She would never have to be a victim again.  
  
As Gaz slumped to the floor, Dib clutched his wounded shoulder and paused in the middle of the room. Tremendous feelings of pain and loss crept up through his throat, but with it came a quiet acceptance. Maybe it was better this way. He peered at Jessica, still kneeling beside Alex's bleeding corpse, staring at Gaz, and received his final confirmation that things would never be the same again.  
  
For a tear was rolling down Jessica's cheek...  
  
TO BE CONCLUDED... 


	27. Epilogue: Now I Belong...

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES  
  
Epilogue: Now I belong...  
  
It had been fairly easy to explain Alex's death. Gaz had killed her and killed herself, though while that wasn't necessarily true it did prevent Jessica from going to prison. She was left with little outside of it, however. Alex's little stunt with the will had meant that technically all of Jessica's posessions now belonged to the IRS. The Police, rather more concerned with cleaning up the mess left behind by the massacre at the Police station than comforting one little girl, dumped her in an orphanage and sent for the next case.  
  
Jessica entered skool the following monday. The weekend had been spent cleaning Ms. Bitters' classroom and finding a suitably morbid substitute, and surprisingly enough things weren't really too dissimilar to what had gone before, except Jessica. She entered the cafeteria, wearing cheap, second-hand clothing that the orphanage is obliged to supply, and showing several scars across her face that meant that she no longer seemed the proto-fashion model she was destined to be only a few days ago.  
  
She received her standard tray of processed crap from the skool cook. Usually she received a bag lunch straight from her parents full of exciting and exotic tastes, at least compared to this muck. But she was no longer in a position to choose. Jessica turned towards her traditional table, where she usually had praise heaped on her, but things had indeed changed more than she realised. She sat at the edge of the occupied table, and things immediately went into motion.  
  
"What are you doing here?" asked an irritated Aki, who was as far as Jessica could fathom the last of the old Beautiful Ones still alive, and the core of this new group that had sprung up in her absence, "this table's for the cool and the popular only, loser." Jessica seemed hurt.  
  
"What did I do?" she asked out of all innocence. The others treated her with nothing but scorn.  
  
"You ran off with Dib! Leader of the freak squad!" accused Penny, a freckled girl who Peg would've picked on only a week ago, "and you turn up now with crappy clothes and your face all screwed up? You've changed, Jessica."  
  
"You've gone from cool to zero in the space of a weekend!" said Smeedge, the latest recruit to fill out the depleted numbers, "you're a nothing! A loner! A freak! And you're not welcome at this table." Jessica was stunned, not just by this flat out rejection by people who would've kissed the ground she stood on until recently, but by the clear, ringing overtones of Alex in almost EVERYTHING these people said. It was like a curtain had been drawn from her eyes and she could finally see what complete bitches these people were.  
  
She stood up slowly from the table, backing slowly away in case of some last-minute chance of reconciliation, but seeing none coming she instead looked around the room for an alternative place to sit. Everyone seemed to have a friend, but no one would even THINK about considering about her. Dib had been right before. They only liked her because of her popularity. Now it was gone, she had no one left to talk to, no one to relate to. She stayed motionless in the centre of the cafeteria, completely lost.  
  
She looked desperately for some place to fit in, but at every table she approached, she was turned away. She had pissed everyone off, and they picked now of all times to take their revenge. She nearly broke down in tears, she had never been so alone. Even the loser's table was deserted, perhaps understandably considering she had practically killed them all. She looked around and eventually saw Dib, patting the seat next to him and staring at her with a sly look on his face.  
  
Jessica reluctantly sat down next to Dib. She didn't so much as touch her food, merely staring at it looking mournful. She was just wishing the processed goop on a tray in front of her would just come alive and eat her face off or something. She had always been popular, if she wasn't that, then what could she be? Her one raison d'etre had been to piss everyone off and still have friends, and she had failed at that. Dib simply took a sip from a juice carton.  
  
"So how does this go?" Jessica asked, "take this one step at a time and learn to move on and all that shit?" Dib remained impassive.  
  
"Actually, my plans don't really extend beyond checking out this address after skool," Dib explained. Jessica couldn't help but crack one last, humourless jibe.  
  
"What, you tracking down a yeti or something?" Jessica joked. Her face remained impassive throughout, contemplating past glories.  
  
"Actually I'm thinking it's a cadre of Atlantean refugees, could be right, could be wrong, hours of fun for all the family," Dib joked back. He looked at Jessica as she looked back, smiling for the first time in many days. They talked and joked, not as some pre-determined social clique, but as friends...  
  
THE END  
  
...or IS IT!? ......mmmyep I think it is...  
  
Written by a batch of perverted trained monkies under the mind-control of Rasputin.  
  
All characters (C) Nickelodean and Jhnen Vasquez, a match made in hell. 


End file.
